Of Stars and Wars
by de Razz
Summary: Another East Bridge Story as I like to call them, only this time it is a crossover and Raynor is involved. Takes place during Warcraft 3 after Arthas went out to hunt Mal'Ganis. Rating may Change, sorry for names misspelled. I didn't know how I should call the Story...
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1: You crash-landed? XD**

**A/N: Sorry if I won't get all the names right. I'm a German dude and have to look up some English names of certain things. For example Berstling: baneling. Sorry if Raynor is OOC.**

When Raynor woke up, he didn't know anything for a few minutes except his name. He had a head injury, which had been bleeding badly. The blood already dried up, being sticky and all. He leaned back in his chair, the only thing that seemed to be intact.

His memories slowly came back to him. They had been on Castanar, the secret laboratory Mengsk built up. Of course it was impossible for Terrans alone to create one of those monsters he'd seen in Zeratul's crystal. He mentally waved the thought off. It was more important to recollect how he got here, wherever here was.

That's right, there had been a big freighter of the Hercules class, but there had been a little problem. He wanted to be the last one to enter, but the Protoss-Zerg-Hybrid had been already approaching. He had given orders for them to retreat, while he looked for another way out. The Hybrid had been distracted by the large ship escaping.

Raynor wanted to find a save place, where his boys could pick him up. The thing was, the whole facility exploded and he still didn't found a way out. He was cut off, when he noticed an empty Viking.

Well, he wasn't the best pilot, but he'd learned to be adaptive during his time as a low live, yet successful thief. On one of his trips he found the jukebox now hanging in the Hyperion cantina, the trip where he and Tychus almost got caught, because of said jukebox and not because of the guards.

He shook his head. Piloting the Viking had been more difficult than he imagined, plus he'd been thrown away by the shockwave of the explosion and was thrown straight into a black hole, before one of the more experienced pilots could pick him up with another flyer.

He thought he'd die, but instead he was now sitting in his stolen Viking, which looked like two brutalisks played soccer with it. At least the distress signal was still working and it would least for five years. Considering he went through a black hole, no one would belief he survived the trip. He wondered if Sarah would find out, would a part of her actually be sad?

"Well, no use sitting around and thinking about the past and the what ifs." he said to himself. Picking up the first aid kid, a gun, several rations, a few water bottles, putting everything in a bag, he opened the hatch and climbed out of the Viking. He was in some kind of forest, which was good, because it meant plants and animals he could eat. He could hear the sound of a river nearby.

He could use the Viking as a place to stay for bad weather and maybe use the machine guns just in case something big decided he was a nice appetizer.

He went to the sound from where he could hear the river and found a pretty large one. The water was clear, but he'd prefer the water in his bottles until he made sure there was no poison or something that made him sick was in it. As far as he could tell he was on an unknown planet. Who knows, there was a good chance he wasn't in the Korpolu sector anymore.

He decided to look around in a small perimeter so he at least knew his nearby environment. He found wolf traces, traces of a normal animal! "You don't see this very often." he said to himself. Wolfs originally came from earth. The only wolfs in the sector he came from could be seen in zoos, somehow surviving the entire wars his kind had with each other, even before the Zerg and Protoss were discovered.

Wolfs meant there were other animals, plant eaters in this wood confirming Raynors first assumptions of being able to survive on his own. Once he had no more bullets, he'd have to learn to use a bow, in case traps wouldn't be good enough.

He wandered a little more around, memorizing the area around the crash-landing spot. He was exhausted after two hours, no wonder after all he recently went through. He marched back to his flyer, deciding today he would eat one of the military rations, mentally preparing for the junk that was inside the can.

He used the small heater inside to get the grey mush, which was supposed to be something made off potatoes, warm. No matter what, this stuff was easier to get down when it was warmed up. He thought about his situation, while munching down his meal, but he came to the same conclusion, no matter how often he thought over his situation. If the signal would not reach someone, he'd be trapped forever on this planet, alone with the wildlife.

A sudden rustle from the nearby bushes took his attention. He instinctively grabbed his gun and pointed it towards the bushes. There was a little louder rustle and then it stopped all of the sudden.

"Probably just a curios animal." he mumbled, resuming to his so called meal. It was around ten minutes later the rustling returned, followed by 5 zerglings coming out of them. Raynor instinctively picked his gun again and wanted to shoot the oversized insects, when he was struck down by a 6th zergling.

The creature pinned the rebel leader on the ground, while one of his buddies snatched his gun away. Now that was uncommon for the zerg. Normally they killed their prey in an instant, except they were lead by someone and Raynor knew only one person who was the leader of the entire zerg race.

The zergling, he noticed a scar on his right eye, jumped off from him. The one with the gun in his mouth waved his head, like motioning him to follow. Knowing he had no other choice, Raynor followed the zerglings into the woods. After 15 minutes he heard the creep under his feet. Something which surprised him was that the plant life was totally unharmed. Normally the creep was so toxic, it killed other life immediately. Was Kerrigan experimenting on this planet or something?

They soon arrived at a clearing, where a Hatchery was positioned. Around it, Raynor found a spawning pool and an evolutionary chamber. The only units he saw were zerglings, drones and overlords.

"This base must be an outpost or the zerg just arrived here." he concluded. He jumped, when one of the zergs scratched his leg. It motioned its head towards the evolutionary chamber as Raynor heard two voices approaching.

"Would you mind stopping to jump around?" an annoyed, male, _teenage _voice spoke. He could hear an excited, female, _teenage _voice. "Sorry~! It's just totally exciting we're going to meet Jim Raynor in person!" the voice squealed.

"Keep your fangirl down, 'kay? If we ever meet Kerrigan in person, she's gonna rip you apart, just for being his fangirl. And I'll end up as a practice dummy for her hydras."

Two _teens _came out of the woods, near the chamber. One was a girl with blonde hair, white skin city people had, blue eyes, wearing a blue pullover with a parody painting (Carbot Animation XD) of a zergling on it, blue jeans and black shoes made for outside.

The boy had short black hair, the same skin color, a grey vest, open, a t-shirt with an arrow pointing at his head with the writing: 'This space is unoccupied.' He also wore little darker jeans than the girl's and white sport shoes. Their clothes looked a little ripped apart. The boy also had a pipe in one of his hands.

All in all, the two didn't mind the zerg around them. Even more, the zergling who snatched Raynor's colt moved towards the girl and she bent down and picked it up. She petted the ling who in response rubbed its back on her legs.

"Sorry about all that, I just wanted to make sure you don't shot any of my babies."

Raynor almost fell over. The same went for the boy. "That sounded so wrong in so many ways." he said while bending over, sweating.

The girl giggled and gave the zergling a few last strokes, before she tapped him on the back, like you would do with a dog. The ling left, doing whatever he had to do.

The boy sighed, taking the advantage. "Anyways, the name is Ray Silvers, from earth. This is Claire Nights, from earth too and for whatever reason boss of the Zerg around here."

Raynor swallowed the information, but kept his face. Now he really had seen it all. "Jim Raynor, but from what I heard, you've heard about me already."

"About that..." Ray took out a really old modeled thing: a laptop. Raynor raised an eyebrow. "Just a sec, you'll understand when I show you."

"Dropping the bomb that early?" Claire asked.

"Alright." Ray turned his laptop around and on the screen was a program opened, called Starcraft 2. He went to a section called portrays and Raynors jaw hit the ground. There were pictures of him, Zeratul, Kerrigan, all kind of units from all the three races.

"What the hell?" he stuttered.

"Maybe we should sit down?" Claire suggested. They lead him towards a rock, which was not overgrown with creep and sat down on it, explaining a few things to Raynor.

"Well, we don't exactly know how we ended up here or on what planet we're in general. Where we came from, everything Zerg, Terrans, Protoss are races you can chose in the game Starcraft. The main story includes you, Zeratul, Tassadar, Kerrigan, Mengsk and so on. Got the basics?" Ray asked.

"Am I under morpheme in sickbay?" Raynor asked in return. The two teens snorted and started to laugh. "Sorry, we pinched ourselves so often, this ain't a dream." Claire said.

"Okay." Raynor calmed himself down. "Let's consider this is all true, it means you know what will happen in the future, correct?"

"To a certain extinct. You see, Legacy of the Void wasn't released when we got here, the Protoss campaign. So, if you tell us what happened before you got here, we might enlighten you." Ray explained. "What was the last mission you were on?"

Raynor couldn't belief he was actually holding this kind of conversation. He seriously needed a drink, but then he was reminded, he had no access to alcohol for the time being.

"We found a secret laboratory with a Hybrid."

"Ah, got it. But how did you end up here? You were supposed to flee back with the Hercules."

Raynor told them his story in short of hoe he didn't have time to flee and how he ended up stealing a Viking and being sucked into a black hole. The teens' jaws hit the ground.

"You survived being sucked into a black hole?! Compared to that, being struck by lightning and ending up here seems fairly normal." Claire exclaimed.

"What?!" Raynor exclaimed. "I think we should tell you our story, but tomorrow. It's getting dark." None of the other two had noticed the sun setting already. Claire handed Raynor over his gun. "Promise you won't shoot any of my Zerg, got it?" she sounded a little intimidating.

"Hey, where are you going?" he asked.

"The Hatchery." Claire stated as a matter of fact. "Are you insane?!"

"I'm the queen of this swarm, nothing will happen to any of us, at least no one prov-" she stopped suddenly and her head jolted towards a direction. Raynor noticed the Zerg getting aggressive. The Zerglings took on formation to protect the buildings.

"You better get out of the way." she said to him.

"What is it?" he asked.

"We're under attack." Ray said, swinging his pipe over his shoulder. Raynor took out his gun and prepared himself mentally. Nothing could prepare him for what happened next. Some green, muscular creatures came out of the woods. They had moss all over their body, which was most likely there to give them extra stealth in the woods. They had paintings on their faces, like Indians from the old earth.

"Trolls?" Claire asked no one in particular.

"We're on Azeroth? Well shit." Ray rolled his eyes. "Wait something's off. They don't attack just like this." he suddenly realized. On cue, from the different trees axes and spears flow towards the zerg. Claire simply tch-ed. The zerg attacked and even before they reached the woods, screams of pain could be heard from there. Body parts were almost raining from the trees. Eventually everything calmed down.

"I had some Zerg buried inside the woods." Claire explained to the rebel leader. Meanwhile a few drones came out of the hatchery and started carrying the body parts inside the building.

"What were those things?" Raynor asked.

Ray sighed. "Looks like we landed in yet another video game."

The two explained a video game called Warcraft to Raynor and gave him the basic storyline. The sun was almost down. "You can come in or sleep outside. Your choice." Claire said and walked into the Hatchery. Ray followed suit, yawning and rubbing his eyes.

Raynor wasn't too sure what to think of all this, but he knew one thing: he'd be damned if he'd spent the night inside a Hatchery. He walked back to the landing, sorry, crashing sight. "Home sweet home." he mumbled. Not the best place to sleep, but at least it was dry and nothing organic.

XXX

**Hyperion Bridge**

"Damn it!" Matt Horner normally never lost his composure, but the situation was anything but normal. Their commander just had been sucked into a black hole, which could be considered he was dead.

Of course no one ever entered a black hole, but it was most likely suicidal. "Just when we actually made progress." Matt muttered.

The mood on the Hyperion was completely down because of the missing commander. He was the one who motivated them all to fight the dominion.

Tosh had been trying all day to locate the commander with the help of his psi-abilities, but he couldn't find him, meaning he was either out of reach or dead.

Officially the commander was _missing. _Matt knew how slim the chances actually were that the commander actually survived the trip. The chances were beyond zero. Matt now knew how his commander felt when they started the revolution. They'd burned down some outposts and patrols, but actually the only thing they were doing was waiting for Mengsk to find them and jump to a new hiding spot. It was then, when the commander received the dreams from Kerrigan being held by the Zerg, but that was another story.

Matt had to do something, but what could he actually do? It was a black hole, he doubted even Protos ships could get unharmed through something like this.

There was nothing to do at the moment. They collected all the artifact pieces and now waited for Moebius to give them an exchange location. Matt shook his head. Moebius could wait, their commander was top priority. Until someone brought him Raynor's corpse he wouldn't belief he was dead.

He pressed some buttons on the console in front of him. "Stetman, Swann, to the bridge, now." he ordered. The other raiders at the bridge were surprised by his harsh tone. Matt had an idea. It was doomed to not work, but if anyone could bring it to work it was the two specialists of the Hyperion.

XXX

**Azeroth; Jim's stolen Viking**

It was far from the best sleep he ever had, sitting upright the whole time. Jim considered sleeping on the grass, as long as it wouldn't rain. He found his gun (by the way, the ammo for his main weapon was at 0) and literally fell out of the Viking.

He dusted his pants off and thought about his situation. He was on a planet called Azeroth, a planet which contained a handful intelligent, but not very far advanced species. Next there was a teenage girl from an earth of the 21st century and where he was a mere video game character. Said girl controlled a bunch of Zerg. A boy who seemed to be her friend, was with her and according to them, they got struck by lightning and woke up at the clearing.

Raynor had no more leads, than the two teens, so he had no choice, but to return to the Zerg base. The two knew this place better than him. Hopefully Claire wouldn't turn into a second Kerrigan.

As Jim walked the path towards the base, he came across a group of five patrolling Zerglings, who ignored him, instead of attacking him. They didn't even seem to acknowledge his presence.

When he arrived at the Hatchery, he only found Ray leaning against the main building looking something on his laptop.

"Does that thing doesn't go empty?" Raynor asked. The teen looked up. "Meh, that thing fell into the creep and now it is connected to this swarm. Somehow it doesn't need to recharge anymore."

Raynor wasn't sure what he should think of it, so he just didn't bother himself with it, but changed the subject. "Where's Claire?"

He motioned towards the Hatchery. "You see the cocoon? She decided to create a queen. The thing is, we don't have any minerals or vespene gas around, so she has to use her bio energy."

"Her what?"

"You might as well sit down. I can tell you how we got here and what happened so far."

Raynor didn't want to sit in the creep, so they walked back to the stone they sat yesterday.

"It's pretty simple." Ray began. "There was a storm outside and I was visiting Claire. Not wanting to get sucked I stayed and we played video games. I myself Warcraft and she Starcraft. A few hours later BANG!" he put his fist into his palm. "Lightning hit us. Next thing that happened, we woke up on the clearing. We looked around a bit and didn't know what the fuck to do. Claire felt something inside her and on instinct, she placed her hand on the ground and all of the sudden there's this uge jackass blob, which turned into the Hatchery."

"How...?"

Ray shrugged. "I dunno, none of us knows. Bio energy is the actual thing the Zerg use to spawn units or create buildings. Since we have no recourses, the only things that produce the crap are Claire and the Hatchery. The creep is creating the energy like plants do photosynthesis, the reason all the plants are alive. It is a symbiotic relationship. You still follow?"

Raynor nodded, although it was all hard to swallow. "Claire is still not used to get drained of so much energy at once, she needs to rest. Slowly we built up our own swarm. They bring us food, we cook it, eat it and the rest goes into the Hatchery to get some additional bio-energy. By the way, creep is tasty."

Raynor had a hard time not to gross out, when the boy took a mouthful of the creep and ate it. "Like sweets. When I first ate the stuff, I got a little infected. I'm not connected, but around 5% of my genes are Zerg."

Raynor made a mental note NOT to eat the stuff, although he never planned from the very beginning. "One day my laptop fell accidently into the stuff and look at this." He showed Raynor the screen. It was like it was connected to a satellite, showing the woods from above, but in the upper right corner was written Overlord #2.

"And this is?"

"I can like Claire look through the eyes of a Zerg in real time, talk to them via the little mike and look up information, like how much bio energy we have, numbers of troops, condition, creep spread, etc. I think I told you everything so far, except we encountered a few hostile animals. Yesterday we saw you crashlanding, while we were looking for minerals. There's not much to do around here, but now that we know where we're exactly, we need to plan ahead."

The next few hours Ray explained to Raynor the wars that had been going on in Azeroth. Now one of the Overlords was looking for any settlements to see in which stage of the wars they were in.

Raynor had a hard time to belief what he heard, but judging from what happened so far and what was going on, he had to belief the story. "You okay?" Ray asked. Raynor nodded. "It's still hard to belief this is all happening." Ray nodded understanding. "You don't want to know what kind of panic attacks I had, when this all started."

For someone who had panic attacks, he was pretty calm and collective. "So, what about you?" he asked.

"What?"

"What are you going to do now?" he asked. Raynor sighed. "Well, considering you know everything about this world and I don't know anything...I guess I have no choice but to stick around." he answered.

"That's racism."

"What?"

"Not all Zerg are the same. Most of them are controlled by someone. By the by, there's something you should know."

So Ray told Raynor everything about the fallen one and what Kerrigan had to do with all this. Raynor's eyes widened, when he heard the woman he loved was under the influence of someone. The massacres hadn't been her fault at all. It had been this Amon guy! He growled dangerously when he heard Narud was working for Amon.

"Try spelling Narud's name the other way around." Ray suggested.

Raynor didn't get it, but tried it anyways. "D-U-R-A-N. Duran!" It hit him! It had been so obvious. "The artifact is there to return Kerrigan more or less human. However a Hybrid is required for it to work. Valerian is not at fault by the way. He's a good guy compared to his father."

Ray left Raynor in his own thoughts. The rebel leader had a whole lot to think about. Ray returned to the Hatchery, finding his friend still asleep. Sighing he leaned against the fleshy wall. He'd lost count just how long they were in Azeroth, but three months seemed to be the case. He wondered how the story would change, now that Raynor was most likely considered to be dead. Obviously the Char invasion was doomed to fail. Was this the end of the raiders? How would Kerrigan react when she found out Jim had been sucked into the black hole. How would Zeratul react?

This all was important, but right now they had to focus on survival. Azeroth was a planet full of conflict, the worst part: it had been a while since he played WoW. He stopped playing after Cataclysm came out. He knew the story of Warcraft 3 and some parts of Warcraft 2 from a few books he read. They had to find out in exactly what war they landed in and what they would change. The Zerg were strong, but at the moment they had a lag of recourses, which sucked. Sure they hadn't found any settlement yet, so they could spread the creep in order to get more bio energy. The stuff they had in stock was currently 4/10000 in the hatchery and 4/100 in Claire.

The amount they'd be able to store would increase after getting an upgrade, which required 10000 bio mass and it would also give them access to new Zerg units. Anti air for example would be a good idea. More interesting was, Claire said if they were able to find new dna-sequences and bring it to the Hatchery, they would be able to use the Evolutionary Chamber to make something completely new.

Claire woke up a few minutes later finding Ray staring into the pool in the middle of the room. He noticed Claire was awake. "I told Raynor everything I know about Starcraft and Warcraft. He's sitting at the rock."

Claire nodded and closed her eyes. "The queen needs a few more hours. I'm gonna talk to Raynor."

"Sure thing."

Claire embraced the feeling of her collective. She didn't get why Ray didn't want to get fully infested to feel it. He told her he preferred to stay alone in his brain. Meh, either he was afraid or really didn't want to get connected.

The swarm greeted her. She embraced everyone inside her mind, before she walked to the rebel leader. The Zergling with the scar on his eye was watching him. She let her Zerg have individuality to a certain instinct.

"Jeez, Shotgun. Keeping an eye on our guest?" she asked. The Zergling, Ray dubbed him Shotgun for some reason and the name stuck, looked up and greeted his queen with a bow of his head. She giggled. She couldn't help herself but to think the Zerg were a cute race. Maybe it was a side effect of her becoming the queen of this swarm.

She placed herself next to Raynor. "So commander, would you like to join up?"

"Join?" he echoed.

"Not infesting or anything, just tag along. Your skills as a commander are extraordinaire and you're a good person in my book. Once we get the Leviathan unlocked, we can get you back to your crew."

"Leviathan?" he asked.

"Big badass Zerg, like a Battle Cruiser, only ten to twenty times harder. Not to mention some are able to spawn Mutalisks in the middle of a fight."

She remembered the first time she saw a Leviathan while playing Wings of Liberty. That thing got power. Give it enough support and it's even more badass. Who knows how hard it is in real life?

Raynor wasn't really listening. "Commander?"

"Call me Jim." he said with a little smile.

"Alright Jimmy-boy. Let's work together." she held out her hand. Jim shook it.

Suddenly in Claire's mind appeared a picture of a settlement, a small village. The Overlord wasn't seen by the villagers. It was hiding behind a cloud. Some workers did repairs on what seemed to be a barricade and corpses were being burned down at one end of the village. She ordered the Overlord closer, only to find out the village was bigger than she expected. It looked almost deserted. There were tons of corpse piles. She found horses and wagons being packed. She dared to let her Overlord closer, so she could hear some soldiers talking.

"These are the last people. We'll leave Andorhal for good after we escorted them to their new homes."

"Good. But I can't belief the prince did all that. I heard some of the villagers he killed didn't even ate the infected bread."

"Light, it's all the fault of this demon! Let's hope Prince Arthas will come back with its head."

"So this is where we're." Claire nodded as her mind returned to her body.

"What is it?" Raynor asked. Claire explained to Raynor what her Overlord just found out. "We're going to help them." she declared.

"Are you sure? People might think of the Zerg as demons."

"Like I care. Let's see..."

She decided to let half of her Zerglings here to guard the base and took the other half with her. She also took some drones with her, who would carry the heavy stuff with her.

"Yo guys! Looks like we're gonna get a new member!" Ray shouted. "Perfect timing." Claire smiled and walked towards the cocoon. Raynor followed. The cocoon had the one of human size and looked like it would burst any second. Ray was taking a few steps back. "I'm not going to get hit by egg splutter again." he mumbled.

The cocoon burst open and what came out was something they did not expect. She looked like Kerrigan, only was her armor blue shimmering, instead of orange. Raynor nearly got a heart attack, when he saw the Zerg-woman stepping out.

"This is like in the fanfictions, stories fanboys and fangirls write. A dude receives the power of controlling the Zerg and his queens are real beauties." Ray whispered to Raynor who snapped out of it.

The queen kneeled down in front of Claire, who smiled like a proud mother and put both hands on the queen's shoulders.

"Welcome Rose."

"My queen."

The queen stood up and waited for orders. "We're going to help some humans. At first glance it is an easy mission, but I keep having this nagging feeling inside me, it's not going to be that easy."

"Nagging feeling my queen?" Rose blinked "Humans call it gut feeling. It's like you feel something is going to happen, but you can't proof it." Claire explained with the patience of a mother.

"Fun fact of the week, the girl here has a 100% hit strike." Ray commented, glancing over to the girl. "No matter what, when this girl's gut feeling strikes in, something is always up. It's scary. She predicted the exact date the pups of her dog were born."

"If I may say something my queen?" Rose asked.

"Shoot."

"It may be you always had psionic potential, which could explain those events."

"Hmm...maybe. Well, we can talk about this later, let's get going. Rose, you come with us."

The queen bowed. "As you wish."

"You sure? Shouldn't we let her here to protect the base?" Ray asked.

"The Overlords told me, only those stupid trolls are around in a 20 mile radios. Andorhal is 30 miles away. In case anything happens, we can get back pretty fast."

"Wouldn't it be better to built up some spine crawlers and spore canons?"

"I would if we had enough energy, but for now the woods will have to do. Belief me, I don't like it either, but I want Rose with me, so she can get experience as fast as possible."

"Like we have much of that either..." Ray deadpanned. Some Overlords arrived. Drones went inside some. The Zerglings would run, because there were not enough Overlords for them. "They prefer running anyway." Claire explained to Raynor, who had a hell of a time getting everything into his brain.

An Overlord landed in front of the four, the one who would carry the four.

"You tagging along or what?" Claire asked.

"I'm never getting used to this." he mumbled.

The Overlord was big enough for the four in fact four other people could fit in. Raynor still felt uncomfortable, first being in an Overlord, second, being so near a woman who in general appearance resembled Kerrigan. Her facial features were different, a little rounder and her lips were smaller.

The Overlords here were faster than the ones Raynor was used to. He asked about it.

"Well we needed to scout the area, so I put some energy into upgrading the speed of the Overlords. We were looking for minerals and stuff or at least something we could use. The only good thing about the woods is, we can use the trees to get more bio energy and as a hiding spot. I have creep colonies stationed everywhere and while we're speaking the first once are turning into defensive buildings."

"Just admit you totally forgot about them." Ray rolled his eyes. "Arthas is going to be occupied in Northend for a while. We can't really make it in time to save him, can we?" Ray asked.

"If I remember the map correctly, considering everything is 10 to 100 times bigger than in the game World of Warcraft, including storms, the fact we have no marine units...we can warn Terenas, but why would he listen to strangers?" Claire had a worried face.

"Urrgh, like we have a chance anyway against the undead over there. I got an idea. I once read a book about Arthas. In the end after he becomes the Lich King, he's having this dream for five years. He's sitting with Ner'Zhul and the last bit of humanity in form of a little kid in a room. In the end he kills both. If we call out to that little piece, maybe with the help of some Paladins, we might get him back. Or we find a way to destroy Frostmourne."

Claire shivered. "I'm not gonna touch that sword. In the end, it'll absorb the collective."

Raynor had more than just a few questions and he was lucky the explanations took a while, so he was focused on them, instead of Rose.

"We're there." Claire announced. Raynor sighed in relief. Another minute and he would have started shooting the Overlord, no matter how high they were. Claire suddenly stared into space, meaning her mind was watching through the eyes of one of the other Zerg.

"Looks like we're going to kill some zombies." she announced with a smile, no one else in the Overlord really had a good feeling about it.

"I hate it when you grin that way."


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2: Yo zombies! You die over here!**

**Azeroth; Caravan from Andorhal**

Ray had minimal fighting experience from back on earth with his pipe. And the only people he fought were some thugs once or twice a year, when he was out late, which he liked to do a lot, especially in the summer. The rest he got from fighting the slightly bigger animals on Azeroth, but here he had Zerglings as guards. He slowly developed what he could only assume magic powers, while Claire developed psionic powers of course.

He could manipulate elements to a small extent. He first did it on instinct and overdid it the first time, resulting in him losing consciousness. It was nothing compared to the lightning strike though.

They landed a bit away from the ground, so they wouldn't be turned to switcher cheese by the archers. They didn't have any dwarfs with them, which meant they had no siege weapons for the upcoming fight. At least the escort had knights and some priests with them. The leader was a paladin. Claire had seen the guy with the hammer. Even Raynor felt the aura coming from the man.

Said paladin looked pretty much like the ones you use in Warcraft 3 in the multiplayer. Brown hair, full beard and muscular. Despite being 40 already, he didn't have a single grey hair and you have to consider, these guys don't color their hair.

His name was Morlune (I started Warcraft 3 to get a name). People gave him the title: The Mighty. It came thanks to his skills with his hammer and the amount of enemies he defeated with it. This didn't mean his faith in the light was any less strong. It was at least as strong. He'd be dead by now without the light.

"Sir!" A soldier approached him. "We're ready to depart."

Morlune nodded. He looked over the little caravan. These villagers had volunteered to help to get rid of the corpses. Still a few people had their families with them. Morlune had hoped this last escort would go with only helpers. Whatever, it didn't change anything about his duties towards the people.

Everyone looked a little tired because of what happened. Some undead had been left in the city and they had ran into more than a few ambushes. "We can never have peace for long. Light give us strength. We're going!" he announced.

The caravan started walking down the path on slow speed. It would take a week, maybe two, depending on the weather. The road was supposed to be safe, still King Terenas didn't take any chances. Some of the other higher ups said he was wasting money, but Morlune didn't think so. Nothing happened the other times, but that didn't mean nothing had to happen. There were still some Orcs on the loose and the only reason bandits didn't attack, was because of the soldiers.

"Sir!" One of the scouts came back. "The undead! They're following me!"

Excited whispers could be heard amongst the soldiers. "Silence! Defensive positions! Protect the civilians!" Morlune shouted. "The light is with us!" As he said this, a bright aura of light embraced him and his soldiers. They cheered in response.

The undead came only a few minutes later, a large group of ghouls and skeletons, some were archers. A few had pitchforks and other farmer utensils with them. "The only way we can save those poor people is to give them a quick death. I wish there was another way."

"By the light, we're outnumbered." his second in command realized. "Be it that way. They have numbers, but we have courage, faith and the holy light. Come here, my blade is getting restless."

As if they have heard him, the undead charged. "Raise your shields!" Arrows started to rain on the defenders. They may have the best armor, Terenas sent some of the best soldiers and knights to help them, but even the best armor had its weak spots. The arrows were slowed down thanks to the aura, which didn't mean they weren't deadly. The undead had a habit of poisoning their arrows with a sick green liquid. A scratch can be enough to seal someone's fate, if not cured by a priest or wizard.

The undead were only about a hundred yards away, when a voice could suddenly be heard. "GET THEM!"

At the voice's command, Morlune could only think of the creatures as oversized insects. They jumped out of the woods and ripped the undead apart. The paladin was reminded of how the undead normally slaughtered their victims. Only this time the tides were turned. The undead tried to strike back, but they didn't get through the shell of the insects.

"By the light, what are those monsters?!"

"Demons?!"

"Did they escape from the dungeons of Dalaran?"

It was then, Morlune noticed three humans and a woman who looked human in shape, but was obviously one of those monsters with the insect armor and the skeleton wings on her back. They didn't look sharp, yet she was able to slice the ghouls apart.

For Raynor fighting those zombies was almost like fighting the infested Terrans, just they had no shooting weapons (bows and arrows ignored). He still wished his power suit would still be intact. Even with his colt he felt vulnerable.

"Wish I had a shotgun." he mumbled, the most stereotypical weapon for fighting zombies. He didn't understand how Ray could fight with only a pipe. Turned out he didn't. Suddenly a ball of fire appeared in his hand and he threw it at the next best skeleton. "Don't ask. One day I could do it."

Raynor suppressed the headache and reloaded his gun, taking cover behind a rock. Rose meanwhile shot psionic balls in enemy groups, which exploded and killed, well speaking of undead...forget it. She eliminated groups of enemies with it.

Claire had the excited look of a predator on her face. Ever since she became queen, she loved the fighting. She developed some kind of instinct. Her physical abilities increased too, not to mention her new psi-abilities. When she was surrounded by a bunch of zombies, she let out an invisible burst of energy. It was like a little shockwave coming out of her body (why do I think of the dubstep-canon?). The enemies were knocked out. Their bodies already rotting away, increased the damage she made with the blast.

She lifted up the head of a skeleton with her abilities, letting the rest of the body collapsing. "Ray! Combo?"

"Am a little occupied!"

Claire gave a mental order to some Zerglings to give him so space. Claire noticed Ray got hit several times and mentally smacked her head for letting him so unguarded. He was only 5% infested. He had his abilities, but he had not the stamina or reflexes she had.

"Alright, time for barbecue." He shot a fire ball at the head and Claire threw it to a group of zombies, letting it explode.

All in all the fight didn't take long. It just takes a while to write it all down.

Ray collapsed after overusing his new powers. He remembered reading something about wizards who forget to eat during a mission in WoW. "Are you alright?" Raynor asked helping the teen up. "Exhausted. This whole crap is still new to me. I wish I had cola with me. I miss that stuff the most."

The Zergling next to them let out some screeches.

"Shut up Shotgun."

The Zerg seemed to chuckle. Raynor was more than baffled. These were not the kind of Zerg he was used to. He looked around and found out their losses were at 0. Some were injured, but only lightly. Turning around he found the humans behind them taking fighting position. Their leader eyed him and his three companions. One knight shouted and pointed at the sky. Two Overlords with Drones inside them arrived.

Claire walked towards the leader of the human soldiers. "20 bugs, they're going to attack us." Ray said to Raynor. The other three followed Claire and stopped in front of the paladin. By the way, the girl had both arms behind the back of her head crossed.

"Hi!" she cheered. "We're doomed." Ray mumbled. Now Raynor knew why Ray was so pessimistic. Claire was what you'd call a free spirit.

"The name's Claire, nice to meet ya all. How's it going?" Ray facepalmed. "They're evacuating a zombie infested village and you're asking them how it goes? How'd you feel if your family would be turned into a bunch of skeletons?"

"Ooops, sorry~"

_God help us. _Raynor thought.

"Ray Silvers by the way."

"Sorry if we scared you a bit, but we thought you could need some help." Claire explained.

Morlune was the first one to find his voice back. "I am Morlune of the Silver Hand." Before he got any further, the one he suspected to be the leader approached the blond girl. "My queen, the Overlords found the base of the undead."

"They got a whole base? So deep in alliance territory?" she asked.

"You and your stupid gut feeling." Ray muttered.

He took out his laptop from the back, which was somehow undamaged from the battle. "There we go. Spirit towers, a haunted goldmine, Necropolis, Graveyard, Crypt. At least no Altair of Darkness or Slaughterhouse."

"You're...the leader of those...creatures?" the second in command asked Claire, who nodded. "Yup, belief me I was surprised when I found out. By the way, these here are Rose and this is James Raynor."

The rebel leader nodded, but figured since Claire was the leader of the Zerg, even if not a very diplomatic one, he should let her do the talking. Authority was important.

"Long story short, my Overlords found you guys and I'm offering you the help of the Zerg." she said, still smiling.

Ray counted down. "3...2...1..."

"That's absurd!" the second in command shouted. "We'd never join forces with demons!" he drew his sword. However the paladin held a hand in front of the man.

"Sire?"

"Tell me young Claire, what do you have to gain from helping us?" Morgule had learned that sometimes the diplomatic way was the best way. And although he wasn't too fond of those Zerg, they did attack the undead forces and saved many human lives.

"Nothing!" she cheered. "We can't use undead bodies to win bio energy and we can't win any from gold or any other ordinary metal. I just thought you guys could need some help. Aside from that, I'm bored."

"You just HAD to say it." Ray deadpanned in an overdramatic way.

The paladin eyed every one of the four. The face of the woman in the Zerg armor was an observing one. She especially kept an eye on the second in command, who dared to threaten her queen. The man James Raynor, looked like he was ready to cry out in frustration. The male young one let his shoulder hang, his face still in a deadpan and he was sweating. The other young one Claire was the biggest oddity Murlone had ever seen in his life. He could not see a hint of malice in her face, although she was commanding such creatures.

"Hmm, sent a scout out. If it is true what you said about an undead base I'll...consider your help."

"Sire!?"

"Yay!"

*BONK*

"Ow..."

"I needed to do that." Ray said, after he swung his pipe on the back of his friend's head. The other Zerg were all glaring at him and Rose was about to slice him apart, when Claire stopped the queen, telling her everything was alright.

Ray walked to the side of the road sitting down against a tree and looked at his laptop. Shotgun joined him. The Zerg received orders to burrow them into the ground.

The humans meanwhile whispered among themselves about the unexpected newcomers. Raynor decided to keep his distance for now. Maybe it wasn't such a good idea to tag along.

Murlone walked towards his man. "Sire, are you aren't serious about working with them?! Surely you only complied, so they wouldn't slaughter us." One of the men whispered. They looked over...

And found Shotgun break dancing. Claire and Ray laughed about the behavior of the little ling.

"If I am completely honest, I am not sure whether they really want to slaughter us or to help us."

"Sire, they must be demons!"

The paladin shook his head. "I cannot rule out the possibility. Send messengers to the wizards of Dalaran, the Silver Hand and of course king Terenas. They should be forewarned. In the meantime, we have no choice but play along and pray reinforcements will arrive. I will try to find out as much as possible."

His men nodded.

The paladin first went to James Raynor. "Your name was James Raynor, correct?" the paladin asked. He nodded. "Yes and you were Murlone, right?" The paladin nodded. "I couldn't help, but notice you seem to be out of place. Excuse me if I said something wrong."

Raynor waved off. "No problem. Well how should I put it...my home is a little far away. I got smacked over head pretty badly, while retreating from some enemies. I got...separated from my friends and ended up finding them. I'm not from this continent, so I stick with them, since they know this place better than I do." Raynor had to be careful with his choice in words.

"What do you think of these...?"

"The Zerg? I have plenty of experience fighting against them and not with them."

"You know those creatures?"

"I wish I'd have never met them. Their controlled by a higher being normally, someone like...Rose. I don't get how a girl like Claire could become the leader of the local Zerg. I hope she doesn't become like..." he trailed off. He had said too much already. Murlone saw the conflict in the man's face and didn't press further for now.

He found two things out: one, Raynor had experience with Zerg and could be useful for strategies against those creatures. Two, something personal happened between him and the Zerg. That is, if he wasn't faking it all. But something inside Murlone said he could trust James Raynor.

He walked over to the boy with the Zergling. "Excuse me young friend, am I interrupting something?"

Ray looked up. "Nah, take a seat, this might interest you." Murlone did and looked at the screen. He saw an undead outpost.

"What is this?"

"A laptop, it works with electricity. It would take too much time to explain everything. Let's focus on this one." he pointed at the screen. "My laptop is linked to one of our scouting Overlords. This is exactly what he sees right now. And as you can see they're waiting for something. Maybe a report from the group they sent against us?"

The paladin's eyes widened as he saw what kind of strategies were possible through this laptop. He could now see what exactly lay ahead of them. The base was blocking the way, so they had no choice but to destroy it. The catch was they had no mortar teams, catapults or anything good for siege at all. What made matters worse, they had civilians with them. They could go around, but they would have to endure wave after wave and until reinforcements arrived it would be too late.

"You don't have any siege weapons with you, have you?" Ray asked.

"Unfortunately no." Ray frowned.

"We only have 1000 Zerglings and one Queen. None of them is really good against those stupid spirit towers. If only we had Roaches or even Banelings would do the trick."

"What about those?" Murlone asked. "These are drones, workers. They mutate into Zerg buildings or transport stuff. Claire brought them, because their faster than horses."

None combat units the paladin realized. "We're going to endure a few losses, if we don't think of something." Ray said, staring at the screen.

Real time observation and workers.

The paladin walked to the supposed to be queen, which he had a hard time to belief actually. She was looking over to the destroyed village. "You know it's funny." she began. "You always hear about stuff like this. A storm destroyed the village, rebels take civilians hostage, there's a war going on somewhere far away, it's none of your business. But when you see it with your own eyes" she inhaled a deep breath and let it out slowly "nothing prepares you for this. Books, pictures...even seeing through the eyes of one of my Overlords, it's so far away. But today...when I see this destroyed village...words are failing me."

The paladin saw now the girl's face, a tear running down her cheek. "After I noticed I somehow became the queen of these Zerg, I noticed some of my emotions changing. I don't hesitate to kill. I don't feel fear in a fight. I am excited, I am a hunter, but..." she let out a sigh "I'm glad I can still be sad."

"How long are you the queen of the Zerg and how did it happen?"

Claire laughed. "Would you belief me Ray and I got struck by lightning, woke up in the woods and I found out about my new power?" His face was answer enough to her.

"As for how long, around three months if I didn't miscount."

"Yo!" Ray waved over. "Jimmy-boy got an idea."

Claire grinned. "As expected from the leader of Raynor's Raiders. Wish I could see the Hyperion."

Claire didn't notice she said it out loud and skipped over to the others. Morlune stored the information in the back of his head and followed.

"What is it?" Claire asked.

Raynor pointed at the cliffs near the goldmine. "They didn't build up any defensive structures at this point. We can use the Overlords to drop our troops inside their base and make a little chaos."

"Good idea, only I don't have that many Overlords. We'd still get overrun."

"Zerg becoming overrun. Now that's something new." Ray commented.

"Those towers can only shoot with those crystals, right?" he asked.

Murlone nodded. "Yes, but we don't know much about their magic. It is too bad we don't have a magician with us."

"Well, how about we sent those rocks of the cliff? We would only get three of them, but at least there would be a hole in their defense." Raynor suggested.

"It's the only plan we have. And as long as their unprepared, we might be able to blow them up." Claire mused.

At this moment the scout returned on his horse and confirmed the location of the undead base. Murlone nodded. As long as they had the element of the surprise they would strike. Of course with the information he had, his men were enough, but at what cost? Despite his officers advice he decided they would work together on this mission.

The villagers whispered amongst themselves, but even they saw how much of a threat the Zerg would be, if they turned against them.

"Rose, you go with one of the Overlords. Try to use as many psi-bombs as possible to get rid of the towers."

"As you wish, my queen."

As the Overlords went out, the rest of the troops marched towards the undead base. Ray definitely didn't sign up to get pierced by some spirit towers. He, Claire and even Raynor were riding on Zerglings, while the Paladin was riding on his horse.

"Kerrigan would have the time of her life, seeing Raynor like this." Claire whispered to Ray, who grinned in return. "Let's hope she doesn't get the idea of following him through the black hole. But seriously, when we get the Leviathan strain, do you really want to fly through a black hole? I think it is a miracle Jim survived."

Claire shrugged. "Maybe we'll find another way. I wonder how his men are doing without him."

XXX

**Hyperion Cantina**

This was the hardest task Stetman had been ever be entrusted. He was supposed to invent a material which could resist the gravitation of a black hole and Swan was supposed to invent a satellite which could send signals through said hole.

Ever since the first discovery of a black hole, humanity didn't make much of a progress in studying the black holes. Stetman and Swan started at zero. The two were taking a break, talking about their progress, which did not exist at all.

Everyone on the Hyperion counted on them, but hell these are black holes we're talking about.

"Oh dear...I have no idea where to start." Stetman said. So far he only played with his consoles, trying to get any idea. Then he tried brainstorming. Then he tried thinking. Then he started considering things. But there were just too many unknown factors he had to deal with.

Swan was in no better position and without Stetman making progress, there was nothing he could work with.

The two were sitting depressed in a corner of a cantina. Matt watched the two all depressed and knew he'd put too much of a burden on those two. It seemed as if they had to give up the commander and go on without him.

As it stood, they either really continued the revolution without Raynor or hoped for Stetman and Swan to miraculously come up with something or asked the Protos or...asked Kerrigan.

Matt gulped at the thought. Everybody on the Hyperion knew how close those two were before she got infested and she _might _still feel this way and her psionic abilities _might _be the thing they needed. He would save it up as last option though.

XXX

**Azeroth; Undead Base**

Rose had her orders from her queen and she would follow them, no matter what. It was not her to question the queen's decision to help the humans. But when she thought about it a second time, she saw the reasoning. As long as they didn't find recourses, the swarm would grow very slowly.

Since the undead were against every living being, it was wise to look for allies.

_Rose, while you're at it, try to capture at least one Acolyte. We might get some info out of them._

_As you wish, my queen._

Rose would not fail, especially not on her first mission, which was really easy. She would stand on the cliff, coordinating the small attack force, while throwing rocks with her psi abilities down and destroying as much towers as possible.

Some of the Overlords would help her, but final decisions were up to her, a great honor for the not even one day old queen.

_Rose. _This time it was Ray speaking, who worked as a communication officer for the time being. _Those guys are getting impatient. It won't take long until they try to figure out what happened. Your time limit is as soon as they found out with their scouts. Killing them might help, but they also could get suspicious of their units just disappearing. The Acolytes seem to have the command over this base. We need to take them out before they call reinforcements._

Rose understood. Taking out the Acolytes was like taking out a Cerebrate. The undead would get lost and become easy targets.

Although her time was limited, she took her time to observe the base. She counted 15 Acolytes, five of them working at the small mine. She didn't have to catch one alive, it was more a bonus. But Rose would be damned to fail on this one.

It would take time until the rest of the forces would arrive. As much as Rose wanted to, she couldn't get rid of the small undead army alone. For one, she was too weak at the moment and two she only had a hundred Zerglings with her. Those were around 300 Ghouls. Small number? She couldn't assault them all, because of the defense towers.

_Such a great number can't get come from the local villages._

She informed her queen about it. A few minutes later her answer came. _Murlone told us a few more villages got victims of the plague. It stopped spreading after the demon Lord disappeared, but it will take time until everything is taken care of, especially getting the land back to life. We'll be soon there. Attack now._

With her telepathic abilities she picked up several large stones and threw them at the crystals over the towers, they were called Ziggurats without the crystals and supplied the undead with food, on whatever way it worked.

It worked. The crystals seemed unstable and as they hid the ground they exploded. However as soon as the crystals exploded, new crystals started to appear. Rose gave away a warning to her queen. As the undead forces showed what was going on, the Overlords dropped the Zerglings, who first attacked the Acolytes working on the gold mine. The fools were so occupied in working with their spells, they didn't notice the invaders, until it was too late.

Seeing as the towers wouldn't shoot for a while Rose shot kinetic bombs at the towers. It took her a little while to destroy the first one, after which the undead noticed her. She growled. This was not working well after plan. She needed to get rid of the Acolytes she realized.

Her own forces however were occupied with the undead and at this rate none of her lings would be able to get to one. She growled. The skeletons started shooting their stupid arrows at her, but her armor was strong enough to deflect them.

After taking care of the towers again, she mentally picked out one of the Acolytes and let him fly to her position. He stood dumbfounded for a second, before she knocked him out with a good smack.

Finally reinforcements arrived. Rose needed to focus on the towers, so her queen and her companions could focus on the army of the undead. An aura of bright light surrounded every one of the forces, coming out from the paladin. It increased the moral on the human side.

Rose ignored the light, like any other Zerg. She only accepted the embracement of her queen's mind. She could accept if it helped the humans.

The fight was soon over with their collective power. Some of the Zerg who had been under Rose's command, were seriously injured, but she took care of it. Afterwards Rose felt the consequences of using her powers so often, but she stood her ground. She wouldn't show any weakness, even if the humans were considered to be allies at the moment.

Her queen arrived and to her surprise she embraced her in a hug. "I'm proud of you." she said and Rose felt like she was about to explode of pride. Claire also checked the Zerglings who went with Rose and was delighted to see everyone alive. Since she didn't have the time to hug 100 Zerg, she embraced everyone within the collective.

XXX

**Caravan Camp; 1 hour later**

"Never thought we'd get out of there without any losses." Ray commented as he, Claire, Raynor, Rose and even Murlone were sitting around the same fire.

"And you wanted to let Rose guard the base." Claire said, pride clearly being in her voice.

"I guess that is why you're the boss. But seriously Rose, respect. We didn't know the towers could regenerate that quickly and still you managed to keep them shut down." Ray raised his mug and nodded.

Rose took the compliment.

Raynor spoke up. "How long until we arrive in the next city?" he asked.

"A week if we keep using the drones to transport everything." the paladin answered. "I never properly thanked you all. Without you, we wouldn't have made it through the undead so unharmed. Maybe we wouldn't have made it."

"No prob." Claire answered and yawned. "I can't wait to see the faces of the people in town, when they see my Zerg."

"You seriously plan on going in?" Ray asked, but shook his head. "Why do I even ask? You like stomp on the dragon's tail."

"What's that supposed to mean?" she asked, not liking the tone of her friend.

"You remember how you snug into the principal's office and placed the cockroaches into his drawer? Everyone knew you did it, the only reason you didn't get grounded was because there was no evidence. Where did you get that many anyway?"

"School cantina."

...

"Remind me to shoot the cooks."

The Zerglings were burred around the camp, with the exception of Shotgun and a few others on patrol duty. Shotgun was something like a Zerg Sergeant being wilder as the other and often took the initiative. Having a name was the greatest honor for a Zerg. Sure he got his name from Ray, instead of his Queen, but she liked it anyway.

He could feel how her queen summoned more of his kind and more Overlords as well, back at home. He didn't mind getting away from the creep for a bit. Those undead were a bigger challenge than the local animals or even the trolls. He reported to the Overlord about what the humans whispered about the Zerg. It was obvious that they didn't like the Zerg and judging from their words the queen could hear, when the stupid humans were about to betray them.

Shotgun continued his rounds, checking on the other Zerglings here and there. The Queen allowed each Zerg individuality, as long as they were loyal to the swarm. Of course no one doubted the Queen. It was every Zerg's greatest wish to follow the Queen. If they died, she would give them reincarnation.

Suddenly Shotgun smelled something. A distant memory inside his DNA reacted, but before he could pinpoint what it was it was gone. Shrugging, a gesture he got from Ray and his Queen, he continued his rounds.

He came across the now roped Acolyte who was guarded by three humans. The human's eyed the Zergling through their helmets, but didn't move. The necromancer didn't talk, but Rose already got all the useful information out of him and told the rest.

There was another undead base near the coast. The reason they had so many undead was because they had so many reinforcements from the North Pole of this planet. Needless to say they had to get rid of it, but the swarm was in no state to fight an army this big. They also needed to get into stage two, to unlock more units.

Claire saved her own bio energy to get a second Hatchery. Back at the home base, she was spreading creep and getting new soldiers. Once she had a second Hatchery, she would spread the creep a little further and then save up bio energy to get into stage two. Now that the humans knew about the Zerg presence it wouldn't take long until the other races got knowledge of them.

Claire asked her Zerglings to come by, so she and Ray could use them as pillows. Raynor preferred sleeping on the ground, still wary of the insects. Morlune didn't go to sleep directly. Instead he walked in his tent, where his two officers were waiting.

"Sire."

He nodded. "They're asleep now, except for Rose."

"Yes, Sire. The Zerg who aren't underground are patrolling the area in groups."

"Sire, what do we do about them?" asked the other man.

"As far as I can see they don't plan on betraying us. They even let their queen at a stage of easily being harmed. You may disagree and I wish of you to speak open, but I think we can trust them."

"Sire" his second in command "this could be all a trick to get into one of our cities and slaughter everyone."

"That's why we won't allow them to enter with the exception of the four and the drones. I am not a fool. They may have 1000 Zerglings, but that is not enough to bring our cities down, when they are outside. And I think if this really IS all a trick, the four alone cannot escape from us."

"Sire, are you sure? We may be able to overwhelm them, but at least three of them are able to use magic."

"Don't worry. I have received word a few wizards of Dalaran are already at our destination."

"So far they haven't given us a reason to attack them. And I think we all agree it is wise to not give them a reason to attack us."

XXX

**On the road to Strahnbrand**

Strahnbrand had been rebuilt and was now bigger, because the evacuated people all lived there. The small village Brill had been evacuated too, just to be sure. Strahnbrand was slowly growing into a middle big city after Azeroth standards.

The first day was uneventful and the people slowly got used to the presence of the Zerg. Hell at the end of the day, Raynor saw some kids riding the Zerglings. He had to be on morpheme, everything else just wasn't possible.

He started talking more and more with Morlune, however he avoided details which made holding conversations difficult. Instead they talked about the landscape.

Raynor found later a topic: his old home. He didn't tell how advanced the people at home were or that he was from an entirely different world. He simply told the paladin he'd been working on his dad's farm until someone from the local military hired him.

Raynor had only thought about the money his family needed at the time. He didn't hesitate to tell them how corrupted the military was and even didn't hesitate, he'd been a thief for a long time period until he heard about his father's death. He made it just in time to talk to his mother one last time before she died.

Later he became a man of law, thanks to the help of a friend of the family.

Morlune listened intently. He of course noticed Raynor avoiding details, but got a general idea of the life of the man.

The paladin noticed the question 'Where he came from' was avoided intently. Was he from another world like the Orcs? Well Raynor was human, so he may be just from another continent. Well whatever the reason, Morlune had a good feeling with the man.

On the second day of their travel, they encountered some Ogres, but nothing the Zerg couldn't handle. Claire let a Drone turn into a new Hatchery back at home.

"Wow, I'm getting homesick already." she said.

"Yeah. I mean I'm not even a full Zerg, but this place protected us from all kind of dangers. I think the other Zerg are getting homesick too." Ray said.

"We shouldn't stay too long. So much for shopping, but I can do it another time."

"And when you actually have the money." Ray sweatdropped. "Hey Raynor, are you gonna stay over there or are you still gonna tag along with us?" Claire asked the rebel leader. He didn't answer directly, instead he said he'd think about it, surprising everyone.

On the one hand he preferred humans, duh. On the other he didn't know a thing about this world, the distress signal was still active and the Zerg were his only ticket off the planet.

Unfortunately he'd have to decide earlier than everyone thought, because on the third day they unfortunately met Garithos.

_Not him. _Ray and Claire groaned simultaneously in their heads.

"Paladin Morlune, I am disappointed, to think someone like you would pact with demons."

"There's a great difference between Zerg and demons." Ray deadpanned. "Let's get the heck out of here. This guy stinks." he said. The Zerg all obviously nodded agreeing to Ray. It looked like they adapted to his sense of humor.

"Why you little-"

"That's Garithos, the biggest racist amongst the alliance." Claire explained to Raynor, completely ignoring the man. "He defended a village of the elves or something like that, but his own home got busted by Orcs. He blames the elves, but all in all, he only accepts humans and treats everyone else from other races like dirt. I for my part don't go with that douchebag."

"That's it! I'll-wha..? What's happening?"

Garithos was suddenly flying in mid-air. "That's what I think of racists." Claire mentally ordered Rose to throw him into the dirt, which she did.

Claire grinned and ordered her drones to unload the stuff. Meanwhile Shotgun went over to the fallen man like a dog, sniffed and pissed on him like a dog. Every single Zerg, even Rose, burst out laughing.

"Shotgun, you're spending way too much time with Ray."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Claire waved off and mentally ordered the Overlords down for the drones to get in and the Zerglings to head back to the base.

"Nice to meet ya, Morlune. Hope we can work together again one day." she said to the completely stunned, yet amused paladin. Raynor decided to stay with them. Seeing Garithos, the man would probably give the rebel leader too much trouble and in the end, throw him into a cage. Besides, he started to like the two teens. And this time he got a private Overlord.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3 Evolution? Let's test our new strength on him!**

**Claire's base**

With the help of the Overlords the four and the Drones managed to get back in one day. The Zerglings took a little longer, but since they could ran at full speed they arrived the day after the others arrived.

Claire knew Garithos was no man to simply endure the shame she put on him. Now she had two choices: one creating more lings, in case he really is dumb enough to attack (which he is) or two to evolve into stage two.

The humans didn't know where the swarm was, at least not yet, but they had the general idea it was around Andorhal. If Claire would decide to evolve, she and her swarm would be vulnerable for 24 hours, but she needed the other units, especially if she wanted to go against the other undead units. Sure ghouls and skeletons were useless against her lings, but what about the Banshees, the Meat Wagons, the Abominations and so on. And who says she only was up against the undead?

She made her decision. She would wait and evolve into stage 2, however, if one of her scouts found any threat to her swarm nearby, she would delay the evolving and get rid of the danger first.

She announced her plan to her two human companions, so they could prepare themselves.

"Sucks that not even the defensive buildings will work." Ray said as they sat together near Raynor's Viking. Claire left the area around the damaged flyer creep free. "I don't get it, can't you just build the things you need for new units?" Raynor asked.

"No. My guess is either the Overmind already was at the final stage or my Swarm differs a little from what we're used to." Claire answered with a thinking expression. "I'm worried about the undead base at the cost too, but I doubt I'll be able to bust that one at our current stage."

Raynor nodded in agreement. As terrifying as Zerglings were, they weren't all-round units.

"That's why I prefer playing the Terrans." Ray said. "Marines are really useful against land and air units. I also prefer their repairing ability. That reminds me, do you remember the match were I went on hellion walkers and medivacs?"

Claire facepalmed. "I still can't belief blizzard did this."

"What?" Raynor asked. Ray grinned. "With the new expansion, a few new units came out. Hellions for example can transform into walkers to increase the damage, but decrease the speed. Now I also had some marines and some medivacs. Claire played Zerg and was about to overrun me. I transformed my Hellions and suddenly my medivacs started healing them. I blocked the attack and the two of us were dumbfounded. I click at my unit and it turns out it is biological all of the sudden!" Ray laughed.

"Claire accused me as a cheater and I had to send one of them to her base, so she could take a look too. Oh god how she was on rage, it was too good."

Ray started Starcraft 2 to show Raynor the units, their pros and cons. As he asked why some units weren't there, they simply told him it would have been unfair. Raynor learned about the so called wall-in, a strategy good for beginner players.

Raynor informed the two supply depots were only needed if the troops would stay longer than a day. The factory, barracks and star ports were needed for new equipment or complicated repairs SCVs couldn't do on the field.

Raynor gulped, when they showed him the Leviathan. He saw how this thing could become a problem for his men. Raynor also learned about where the Zerg original came from and how they looked like. In short they showed him the two campaigns, including a few funny secrets.

Raynor saw what would have happened if he would have killed the infested Terrans on Agria or helped Nova instead of Tosh. Tychus betrayal, Kerrigan's campaign, Raynor had a lot to swallow on this single day.

Claire was getting more and more impatient and nervous. She wanted to start the next evolution, but she had to wait for another hour until she could actually do it. She wandered around aimlessly for the next hour.

Rose meanwhile was inside the evolution chamber. She wanted to make her Queen proud with a new Zerg creation, but at the moment she lacked both DNA-Strains and Bio-energy. Her Queen wanted to get to the next stage. Rose understood this and to put it onto human terms, she was working on the blueprints.

Ray eventually came in with a bored expression. "Watcha doing?" he asked out of boredom.

"I'm thinking about creating new Zerg. As for now I am not allowed to use any bio energy."

"Any ideas?"

"No." Rose hated to admit it. Here she wanted to impress her queen and she had no idea how to start. Ray shrugged.

"Well Claire is complaining about not having any marine units. Dunno how it should work on worlds without water or lava instead of water, but maybe you could start with this?" He took out his laptop and switched between Overlords, until he found the one he was looking for.

"There, a bunch of Murlocs. Not the best DNA you can find, but maybe a start?" he suggested. Rose looked at the little Murloc settlement. They were not too far away and weren't much of a challenge either. Naga would probably be better, but those creatures were a start.

Rose could collect their DNA and return in time before the evolution began. "I won't tell her anything." Ray reassured and Rose was on her way. Claire smiled, her eyes still closed. She had listened to the conversation and decided to act as if she didn't know what was going on. She couldn't wait for the results.

Rose took a Drone and 10 Zerglings to protect the Drone with her. Ray watched from one of the Overlords, as the Queen ran ahead of the little group. Ray decided Rose could keep herself save and watched the group of the Drone and the Zerglings.

_"What is this?" _Rose asked all of the sudden. Ray took out his headphones from his laptop-bag and plugged them in. He changed the Overlord.

"A Fountain of Mana. Wow, didn't know they exist. They restore your energy, so you can use your special abilities more often. There's another type of fountain, called Fountain of Health, which heals your wounds if you drink from the water. Keep your eyes open. I'll mark every fountain you find, so Claire can place protection around them later." He explained.

Rose went on and finally arrived at the little settlement. Ray looked away 5 seconds after the slaughter began. The Drone arrived, picked up the parts, pulled them all together and melted them into a meatball. She built a sac around it and transported it back to the base.

She put the stuff into the Hatchery and resumed to her original duties.

Claire went through everything one last time, before she approached Ray. "You and Raynor are going to be alone for 24 hours. Are you sure it's okay?" she asked. Ray nodded. "Now is a good opportunity. As long as no one is near the base or found the base, we should use the opportunity. Good night, Raynor and eye keep our eyes open."

Claire nodded. She walked back into the first Hatchery and undressed herself. When she gave the order to evolve a cocoon began building around her and every other Zerg unit. She was fast asleep.

XXX

**The Woods; One hour later**

Ray knew it was crazy to go out alone in the woods like this, but he was more than just bored shitless out of his mind. Raynor was still deep in his own thoughts, so Ray walked alone. He already left the creep, the area which was supposed to be safe.

All over the creep were Zerg cocoons, even the buildings were inside cocoons. If anyone would attack now, they'd be screwed. It took Ray half of the latter day to leave the forest. When he returned to the base, it would be night, if he still managed it. Luckily he stuffed himself full with creep before he left. It gave him a lot of energy for the day. He still preferred normal food and creep was more like candy for him.

He stretched himself when he was out and thought about the humans they helped a few days ago. He wondered what kind of impression they all left on them.

He sat down somewhere in the field, watching the sunset. He let out a sigh, thinking about family and friends back at home. The two were most likely considered dead, the lightning strike and all.

"Shit got real, alright." he mused. Thinking about what would happen in the future on this planet, he didn't like the idea of staying. There would be just too much going on here. Azeroth was full of conflict, it never really stopped. Although they had some chances...

There was a red dragon, Ray only remembered his human name Krasus, and he was very fond of this planet and humans. He could be considered the second in command of the red tribe being the first mate of the queen there. A good thing was he 'infiltrated' the humans and was one of the heads of Dalaran.

It was a long-shot, but Krasus was very clever. Besides if they wouldn't do anything, he'd die in a few years after Arthas was defeated for good.

The sun was already setting. It looked like he'd have to spend the night outside the base. He'd never manage to get back before it was dark and the chances of getting lost were too great. Not to mention the trolls.

...?

"There is something."

Smoke was rising in the distance. Curiosity got the better of Ray and he decided to find out what it was. It was farther away than he first thought, but he managed it to get to the source before it was completely dark. It was a human camp.

Three patrolmen found him.

"Stop. Who are you and what are you doing here?" One asked. They weren't aggressive or anything, just did their job.

"My name is Ray Silvers and as to what I'm doing here, I live nearby and saw smoke rising in the distance. Thought I should check it out."

The leader of the little troop didn't seem satisfied, but that was hard to tell, since they were wearing helmets. "Every civilian is supposed to be evacuated from this area." he stated.

"Yeah, actually I live in the woods."

"What are those for strange clothes you wear?" one of the man asked.

"I'm not from Lorderon to be honest. I'm living here for a little more than three months."

"Is that so? You're coming with us?"

"Not that I have anything better to do." Ray muttered under his breath. The teen was lead to the camp. There was quite the amount of soldiers. For the first time in his life, Ray saw real dwarfs and here and there was even an elf. Everyone eyed him, maybe because of his clothes.

He was brought to a leader tent, similar to Morlune's. Speaking of the devil.

"Sire, we found him outside of the camp." One of the men said. The paladin turned around from his desk, on which was a map and it turned out to be Morlune.

"Young Ray, I didn't expect to meet you here."

"Neither did I, bro. Thought you got a bit of trouble because of what happened." Ray scratched the back of his head and smiled sheepishly. Morlune smiled a little but shook his head.

"May I ask what you are doing here?"

"Well Claire decided to get the Zerg into Stage 2, meaning stronger Zerg and more units. You've seen Zerglings alone are not the best choice. The thing is, she and EVERY other Zerg are sleeping in a cocoon for a full day. I got bored, strolled around and saw your little camp in the distance."

The men, they probably had seen the Zerg in action, were a little uncomfortable about the information.

"So the home of the Zerg is nearby?" the paladin asked.

"Yeah, but right now everyone is asleep. Hey, you didn't get any problems about working together with us, did you?" he asked.

Morlune smiled. "Don't worry my friend. But you should tell your Queen she should not repeat something like this again, if she doesn't want to have war with the alliance."

"Meh, Claire ain't my queen, she's a good friend of mine. She's just a little crazy sometimes and ever since she got these powers, I noticed she once had this little something called sanity."

Ray laughed over his own lame joke. "Whatever, what about the base at the cost? Are you already attacking? If so I bet Claire is ready to help out."

"I can impossible give this kind of information to you."

Ray slapped his forehead. "Sorry, military secretes. Looks like my brain is shutting down for the day. Well I can't really speak for the swarm, but if you need help, you can ask anytime. Well tomorrow midday they should all wake up."

The soldiers around seemed almost scandalized by the offering. "It is not my decision." Ray smiled.

"Guess the higher ups thought: 'Oh shit, another demon invasion? This is getting old.'"

Morlune didn't hide his own smile. "Probably."

"Hey if it is NOT military secret, mind to share what you guys are up here? Any undead left?"

"No, we're heading back to the capital city."

"Mhm. Well I guess good luck and let's hope you don't run into any undead."

They chatted for a while and Ray was offered to stay for the night, since going back was too dangerous.

XXX

**Terenas' Castle; The next Morning**

King Terenas again prayed for his son's safety. As things stood, he really considered sending an order for his troops to come back. It must have gone through with his son's head. Those demons were not to be underestimated.

As the king he had to take care of many things, especially one report was giving him headaches. It was one about a new race of big insects, called the Zerg being somewhere in his kingdom. He had two reports, one being from a paladin of the Silver Hand with the name of Murlone. According to him, the Zerg helped him evacuating civilians and destroying a base.

The second one was from Garithos, although personally the king didn't like the man and his philosophies. The man's report wasn't very accurate and described Murlone as a traitor. Terenas shook his head. There was no time to discuss. He needed to decide what to do about those Zerg.

There was one thing which was similar in both reports. They were lead by one human girl, which was hard to belief, but Garithos wouldn't joke about something like this.

Terenas made his decision.

XXX

**Claire's Base**

Ray munched down a lot of creep. He needed to get some nutrients after half a day without any food. Raynor found him at the river.

"Morning, where have you been?" he asked.

"Got bored and walked out of the woods. I met Morlune."

"How's he doing?" Raynor asked, washing his face with the water. "Well he said he didn't have trouble because of Claire and is on his way back to the capital city. Couldn't tell me anything about other operations against the undead. Meh, when the rest is awake, Claire will surely send out some scouts. And how was your day?"

"Nothing too special. I tried to bring the communicators back online, but I'm not good with technical equipment."

"Mhm. What about the regenerating biosteel? Didn't your suit have that thing?"

"It has, but something in the system itself is damaged and that's too complex to be repaired on its own." he explained.

"Too bad. So" Ray stood up "Claire is going to wake up around lunch time. What are you gonna do?"

Raynor shrugged." A bit exercising and you?"

"Catch up some sleep. The Hatchery is way more comfortable, than any bed I've slept in. Or should I call it already Lair? Anyways we'll get Roaches, Banelings and Hydras after we have the actual buildings. We can research upgrades in the different buildings, like adding new kinds of poison to the Hydras."

Ray went through a small opening of the second Hatchery, which was still mutating, and made himself comfortable inside of it and he immediately fell asleep.

A few hours later he was woken up, by the trembling of the whole building. The swarm was about to wake up. He better gets out and takes some distance from the egg splutter.

Raynor of course noticed the sudden trembling of the cocoons and was standing right in the middle of it all. The boy lead him away, warning him because of the splutter rain, which was about to happen any moment.

Simultaneously the Zerg broke out of their cocoons and Raynor knew now why he was hiding behind a tree. They waited until every Zergling shook himself like a dog to get rid of the last bit of liquid. Almost immediately the Zerg got back to work. Every unit was slightly bigger and a little faster. Drones immediately started placing themselves on free grounds and started mutating while Larva started to mutate into new units.

"Morning guys!" Claire put her pullover on. She didn't look different, only that her hair was shimmering, her skin flawless and her eyes brighter than normal.

"Oh god, Claire, can you give me something to keep my hormones down?" Ray asked completely honest about being attracted to her. Raynor had it better, thinking of Kerrigan and everything was alright, more or less.

Claire giggled. She had seen her reflection in the pool inside the Lair. Shotgun and Rose approached the trio and now they all stood together.

"Alright, I put in the speedling upgrade, the buildings are under construction and I still got plenty of energy left. Looks like the creep is a little bit more efficient after the upgrade." The queen informed the rest. "Anything happened while I was out?"

"I met Morlune. He's doing good and on the way back to the capital, but aside from that everything's been boring."

Raynor agreed. "So what do you plan? You're going against the undead base on the coast?" he asked. Claire got a thoughtful expression. "One of the Overlords is scouting the area, but even with the speed-" she abruptly stopped. A little alarm was going off from Ray's laptop.

"Garithos." Claire growled. "He got quite an army, but only knights and food soldiers. That racist idiot is heading straight towards the cluster." she said.

"Wait." Raynor intervened. "Maybe he was just sent out to take care of the undead."

"We're about to find out."

There was a silence as Claire let her Overlord getting closer in hearing range. The others waited for her to say something. The whole swarm was waiting for her command.

"Tch, idiot. But if he wants trouble, he gets trouble." At Raynor's worried expression she added: "Don't worry, we'll try the diplomatic way first. You're coming with me, while the rest prepares for battle."

Claire and Raynor entered an Overlord and flew away.

"I have a bad feeling, a very bad feeling. It may not be as accurate as Claire's gut feeling, but I think we all agree this is not going to get solved by words."

Rose and Shotgun nodded in agreement.

Ray opened his laptop. He was somehow reminded of the mission briefings in Red Alert 3, where the communicating officer shows you the location of the battle and three pictures regarding the mission.

"Garithos is about to attack the swarm cluster, he wants to cut his way through the forest, in order to not get in an ambush. Every lost tree means to us a loss of bio-energy in the future at least. There are three small outpost were he brings the trees, probably for later use. Before we get to the main base, we take the outposts out and finish him off together. Each of us will lead a part of the swarm, but we have to wait for Claire's orders."

Ray finished his summary.

"We should hold back our new units to surprise this man at his main base." Rose said. An Overlord approached the base in that moment. "This guy may be an idiot, but he got canon towers. Those things are good against masses." Ray informed. Rose grew a smirk.

"Then we'll simply use our Roaches to get rid of them. They can dig their way underground and a before the humans know what is going on, their towers are melted in a pool of acid and our Roaches gone, after which we confront them with our full strength."

"This'll get nasty." Ray commented, closing his laptop. Shotgun screeched something.

"He's right, you need to get connected." Rose said to Ray. The boy let out a sigh but nodded. "I guess."

"Don't worry, your little infestation should be enough for me to allow you to connect, but not become part of the swarm. My queen respects your wishes. May I ask why?"

Ray looked a little uncomfortable. "I guess it's a mixture of pride and being a little afraid. I saw how Claire changed, even if it is for her own good and in general she still is herself, I wanna be myself. And I really prefer to stay alone."

"I don't understand the last part, but I guess it is something human. Now, let me help you."

"Go on."

Rose took Ray's mind and for a few seconds he was completely inside the swarm, until he got control and immediately built up some barriers due to the shock. After a few deep breaths, he opened himself up a little to get a connection. It was like using his new powers.

The trio split up the swarm, so everyone had the exact same amount of troops. The buildings still needed a while, but would be ready soon. Everything was ready. They just had to wait. Ray was trying to get himself comfortable with the whole mind to mind thing, but decided he'd shout his commands. He admitted one benefit from the connection: he was less afraid, very less afraid.

Rose was getting a little impatient as they waited. If anything would have happened to the Queen, they would have noticed. Her troops were placed in the middle of the other two. The so called 'outposts' were small with minimal defense.

It was uncommon for a Zergling to actually lead other Zerglings. It was even more uncommon Shotgun would lead later Zergs which could be considered higher up Zergs. But Shotgun was no common Zergling and thanks to the evolution, he was even more out of the ordinary. He couldn't wait to test his new abilities. He was waiting on the right side.

XXX

**Garithos' base**

"Sire!" One of the knights approached the great marshal. "What is it?"

"The supposed to be 'Queen' of those monsters is here to talk to you."

"Is that so? Bring her here."

"Yes my lord."

Claire had a hard time NOT to blow Garithos up for threatening her family, but she wanted to stay in good terms with Raynor.

"Let's get to the point." she spoke to the man.

"Indeed, either you and your 'pets' leave these lands or I and my men shall rip them to shreds."

"What?! You-"

Claire held an arm in front of Raynor. "I think we both know the answer to this. I don't wanna see unnecessarily sacrifices, so I accept your capitulation anytime." Claire replied with a grin.

"Hmph, we'll see about this monster. Men, get them!"

_Now._

XXX

_Now._

"The last one is a ghoul." Ray cheered as he was sitting on a ling, as they all heard the order. The other two leaders grinned. Ray said it just for fun, but the other two wanted to impress their Queen and so the race started.

**Ray's front**

As we arrived, the soldiers were totally surprised. Let me just say it were many, as it turned out later they thought we only had 1000 Zerglings. Of course we had way more. The three front attack was to split up our troops and to weaken them, so Garithos main troops could finish us.

They were outnumbered at least 3 to 1. I didn't know Garithos had that much influence within the alliance to get such a great strike force. Either that or the higher ups decided to get rid of us.

There was one thing now, I was fighting humans. I had a lot of time to prepare. I already overcame my first time killing a living being with my own hands. Zombies? They were already dead, so no harm done.

This would be the first time I kill humans. I needed to connect myself a little deeper to the swarm. It was comforting, but I knew I wouldn't like it long. Just as long as the battle went on.

From my Zergling I shot balls of different elements at them. Whether I throw balls, let something come out of my fingers or manipulate an element near my enemy, the effect varied.

I threw small wind grenades to a group of soldiers. As it exploded, gusts of wind came from the ground, making them stumble backwards. The Zerglings took care. A part of the soldiers were stationed on towers, shooting arrows, but with the new armor and the upgrade ongoing in the Evolutionary Chamber, it was naught to fail. Obviously those guys didn't have any upgrades or maybe the first one. Garithos had to be rich enough for steel swords, instead of bronze. If the idiot had been smart enough to get some dwarfs or at least their weapons, I would be dead ten times over.

Anytime a soldier wanted to strike me down, a Zergling jumped in and finished them off. I hated myself for not being able to defend myself and I was sitting on a Zergling, like a knight on a horse.

Well I got caught up in a one on one with a knight. Funny, pipe against sword. Claire must have done something with the pipe a few weeks ago, when she burrowed it, because it didn't got even a scratch.

Zerglings weren't that good against towers, but hey, if they can bite through metal, rock was no problem at all. The structures meanwhile were finished and the reinforcements were already in production. The question was which was finished first? This outpost, where I only heard dying screams of men or the reinforcements?

**Rose's front**

The humans had cut down a few trees already, but it would stop now. The workers looked dumbfounded as I let their axes fly through the air and started attacking them.

Some of them cried about magic. As they were all in a panic my Zerglings attacked the humans. It was a greater force than Morlune had, but the swarm had grown. The towers were no problem, as they only shot arrows. I didn't even feel them.

I let the towers live and used the arrows to shot them back with my abilities, killing the horses of some knights, making them food soldiers with slightly better equipment.

Their lances became useless in the process and without shields they were even more vulnerable. I let the towers intact. Once they noticed arrows weren't working on me or my Zerg, the towers became useless to them and useful to me.

I didn't know how they built them so fast, but inside the Zerglings showed me pictures those towers were simple ones. There could have been better structures, but the humans needed them as fast as possible. Said humans became trapped inside them as my Zerg killed everyone inside. Some of the workers had tried to use them as bunkers, but now it became their grave.

I saw now why Ray said this would be easy. A few dwarfs with long ranged weapons or a few of those elf priests, which were with Morlune would have given them a better chance. Or they would have lasted a little bit longer.

My wings cut through the armor as if it was hardened creep. I was born to cut through armor of Protos and Space Marines, even the machines of the two races.

Weapons flew up and together with my wings I performed a little I like to call: dance of the blades.

"Witch!" One of the more braver, but also more stupid humans snarled and raised his sword. I took the sword in my right hand and my left hand took out the man's heart. If I wouldn't have been so occupied with the fight and the fact my queen needed help, I would have tasted. Psychological war of course, nothing else.

Speaking of, half of the man were stunned to fear and the other half was doing the only smart thing: running away.

I doubted they ran to the main base to regroup themselves, but I wouldn't take any chances. This force was big. Were they all Garithos man? If not we had war with the entire human race on this planet and this would mean the other races of the alliance would join soon. A warning example needed to get set for all those who oppose the swarm.

**Shotgun's front**

At least my teeth didn't bite into flesh, which tasted like Protos had shit on it. And I don't care that Protos can't shit! I know how it tasted and it tasted that way!

There was a lot more blood, which wouldn't dry because soon my whole face and next the rest of my body was full of it. I considered making paintings on my face, like the trolls did. Only with blood.

As the leader of this troop, I sadly couldn't let the bloodlust getting the better of me. I needed to look how the humans reacted and needed to give orders for this matter.

The towers were one issue. Not deadly, but annoying as hell, wherever this place is supposed be. So far the humans fought back. I jumped on a nearby tree and there we go.

This one was the captain of this little Boy Scout camp or rather Girl Guide camp, considering the screams. Luckily I didn't need a doctor or else I'd be dread now.

What I learned about humans from the memories of my queen is they were as lost as the Zerg if not guided by someone who had some dominance. I grinned and got ready for using one of my new abilities. Before I could do so, I felt something on my back and adrenaline was rushing through my body. The upgrade was ready.

It certainly would help. I charged a little of my persona bio-energy in my legs and then I charged. I was too fast for the human eye and went through at least 10 humans. They didn't even know they had holes, until they collapsed. This was great.

I let out a war cry and charged at the next best human. I wanted to lose myself, when I remembered humans had more than captains. They also had a few underlings. They didn't fight together anymore, but in groups. Oh well, I could live with that.

Okay, now the towers were really getting on my nerves. I myself charged ahead of the others and took the people inside out. The rest was pure massacre and I finally could enjoy it all. The humans were too scared to properly fight back anymore, not that they could do it in the first place. I didn't bother counting, but everyone could see we were too many. Well not really see thanks to the woods, until we arrived and all-ARRRGH!-You get the idea.

Who am I talking to anyway!?

XXX

**Garithos' base**

The moment Garithos men tried to get a hold of Claire and Raynor, she shot a psionic bomb into a group of soldiers, causing a little distraction. She took Raynor's hand and the two began running towards the Overlord.

Raynor sometimes turned around and shot a few times. It kept their pursuers on distant, but the guys on the towers were a different matter. Garithos would have preferred them alive, but dead they were as good in his book.

The cannon towers shot, but Claire used her new abilities to get her and Raynor out. There was no time for experimenting, like shooting the arrows and cannon balls back. She could die here and later be reborn, Raynor could not. She charged some energy, pointed one hand to the ground, took the rebel leader and shot them both through the air.

They were caught by an Overlord with its long arms. Now Raynor had really seen it all. The Overlord flew into a safe distance on a cliff, where they had a complete overview.

"Sorry." Raynor said. "You guys know about all this better than I do. I thought he would at least...I dunno."

Claire waved off. "Whatever, this guy is an arrogant idiot. Good thing we never mentioned the rest of the troops to Morlune or how fast we can build new forces." she grinned.

Raynor looked down. The Zerg split up in three groups. In one was Ray, in another Rose and Raynor could even make out Shotgun. The Zergling had a bluish fur now. At least Raynor didn't had to look after the scar to identify him. He was slightly bigger too.

Ray shot some lightning on the enemies from his fingers. Rose shot a shockwave, knocking the enemies out who didn't survive. Shotgun somehow summoned an aura around him and bashed his head against the next best enemy.

"This is pure slaughter."

"What do you expect?" Claire asked Raynor, although her voice was a little low, indicating a part of her didn't like it either. "We Zerg can rival the Protos and Terrans. It was doomed to happen from the beginning." She let out a sigh.

"I wanted to make friends with the humans, not become their enemy. But I can't show any weakness, when someone threatens me." She let out another sigh. "Politic is so stupid. After this I doubt we'll be able to make an alliance with the locals."

Raynor put a hand on her shoulder. She smiled at him. "Are you sure you want to stay?"

"Hey, you're my only ticket out of here. And so far you're only defending yourself and your friends and you saved my ass down there."

Claire chuckled. "Alright."

She turned back to the battlefield and saw everything was finished. Her troops were gathering together and she could feel the first Hydralisks and Roaches coming. They wanted to create some Banelings too, but Claire stopped them.

"THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE, GARITHOS!"

Her voice could be heard very far away. "GIVE UP AND I'LL SPARE YOU AND YOUR MEN! FIGHT AND I'LL SHOW YOU THE TRUE MIGHT OF THE SWARM!"

"I'LL SPARE EVERYONE WHO LAYS HIS WEAPON DOWN!"

Garithos had lost a great amount of men, but these were only a part of his real force. Still he didn't knew the Zerg were already beneath him, waiting to melt down the towers, the only thing which could help him winning this battle. If the Zerg were dumb enough to attack blindly.

He didn't know how fast they could build troops and the Zerg didn't know whether he was alone or could request reinforcements.

It was hard to tell whether the moral of the soldiers was down or if they were enraged. Most likely down, but that wasn't enough for Claire. She ordered one of her Roaches to dig around and listen.

It was a mixture of both, but Garithos men, at least the one in command, had the same ideals as he had. One of the men threw away his weapons and was taken into prison. Well, at least he wasn't killed, at least not yet.

"THERE IS ONLY ONE ANSWER, WITCH! WE'LL FIGHT UNTIL YOU AND YOUR DEMON BROOD ARE ROTTED OUT!"

His men cheered. Claire let out another sigh. "Then I have no choice. Spare everyone who gives up during the fight. Proceed after plan, but I want Garithos alive." she growled out loud so even Raynor could hear her orders.

"There's never real peace on Azeroth. Now I know what it means." Claire spoke more to herself.

"We can change that." Raynor said with determination. "We will change that."

"This'll be harder than bringing Mengsk down. There's more than one douchebag on this planet."

Claire's roaches came out and immediately took care of the towers. Since they had been built as fast as possible, there was not much to go through, though it was astonishing how they could build these towers so fast. With more time they would have been much more trouble.

Garithos' soldiers snapped out of it and started attacking the Roaches, but they simply buried themselves and appeared on a different place a few seconds later. It was a game of cat and mouse and the Roaches enjoyed it.

"Luckily he's on his own." Claire said.

"Why are you so sure of that?"

"There're not only elf wizards as in the game. There're human wizards too, but most of them live in Dalaran. The rest of the alliance would have asked him to what he needed them. I'm sure he only attacked us, to say in the end we attacked him and with defeating us, he'd have gotten quite an amount of medals to speak in Terran terms."

"Ah, so that's why he has no dwarfs too. Not because he's a racist, but because they've their own king." Raynor realized.

Claire nodded. She thought about the one mission in the Frozen Throne, where you use the undead and this man's forces. He had ordered help from the dwarfs. She reminded herself of one sentence: "We're not getting paid enough to work for that bastard." Or something similar.

As the towers fell, the Hydralisks made their debut with shooting toxic arrows into the ranks of the humans, thinning them out before the Zerglings arrived.

"Someone's coming!" Raynor said all of the sudden. He had binoculars in his hand. "Who is it?" Claire asked.

"I dunno, but he got a hammer and a silver armor. He's older than Morlune, but his armor is similar to his."

"One of the Silver Hand. Troops?"

"Knights, but very few. Doesn't look like reinforcements." he informed her.

"Stop the attack." her word was their command. "Someone is coming." she informed her troops. She and Raynor walked into the Overlord who brought them towards the three Zerg commanders and Garithos.

"What's up?" Ray asked. Claire was glad to see him unharmed. Her troops were in good condition, but hell, what do you expect of swords without t least a magic burst?

"Someone of the Silver Hand is coming." she informed not only her troops and pointed at the direction the people were coming. It was a paladin with a bunch of knights.

"Reinforcements? I'm not in the mood." Ray said.

Claire shook her head. "More like an ambassador." Claire said.

"Wow you have to look in 3D! It looks like they're really coming to us."

"Wut?" Claire turned around and saw Ray wearing 3D glasses.

"Were the shit did you get them?" she asked barely suppressing her laughter. "Just found them in my pockets. I wanted to make a joke with them with defense towers shooting, but that was too risky in the end."

Finally the pala with his knights arrived (Ray still wearing the 3D glasses). "I am Uther Lightbringer of the Silver Hand. Great Marshal Garithos, you're under arrest."

"What!?"

"You have attacked without orders a potential ally for the fight against the undead."

"WHAT!?" (Ray, Garithos, Shotgun (screeching))

Garithos was disarmed and brought away on the spot. The Zerg gathered behind Claire, Raynor, Ray, Rose and Shotgun.

If Uther was affected by Claire's beauty, he didn't show it.

"Please accept our apology for Garithos actions."

"Meh, ain't your fault buddy. Am just glad, my babies didn't need to kill more humans. OW!"

"STOP CALLING THEM YOUR BABIES!" Ray shouted after hitting her with his pipe. "It freaks me out." he hissed.

Uther saw Morlune was right. The Zerg queen and her companions were special in their own ways. And here he was, bringing the invitation to her. If she accepted the nobles in the capital sure were in for something else.


	4. Chapter 4

_**4. Come to the dark side of the plutonium**_

**A/N: Don't ask about the plutonium. Not much humor in this chapter. Sorry. Next chapter will be the first one without a fight and more actual story.**

**Garithos' destroyed (or rather melted) base**

"An invitation?" Claire asked titling her head, while looking at the paladin. Uther nodded. "My king Terenas wishes to speak with you and your companions, so we would be able to make an alliance together."

"Well...now is actually bad timing. I need to organize some things in my swarm. And is your king sure about that? I mean just look at my Zerg. They're not exactly tamed wolfs or anything. What would your current allies think about this official invetation?"

She looked around, seeing the human forces trying to collect themselves.

"You shouldn't worry yourself about such thinks. I am sure my king can guarantee your safety and those of your friends."

"Well, as I said, I don't have the time right now. Am not sure when I'll find the time actually. The capital is a little away from here and I wanna make sure this the only dead people in this place, are fast asleep in their graves. Speaking off, if you have any undead bothering you, just tell me. I'll send an Overlord to your place, when I finally find the time."

"I see. It is rather unfortunate. Again I apologize for Lord Garithos' behavior."

Claire sighed. "Again, that's not your fault. If anything, then I should have held my troops back." she replied. The sun was as good as set. "I'd normally invite you to sleep in my place, but I doubt you'd like to sleep on something that is actual alive." She winked at the man.

Uther bowed politely. "This is not a problem young queen. I will give your message to king Terenas. Goodnight."

"Hey, wanna have some escorts for the trip? It may be all a mess, but I can afford some troops."

"No thank you, but I appreciate the offer."

Claire shrugged. "Meh, whatever. Night and have a safe trip."

She casually waved her hand, as she entered the Overlord, which flew back to her base. Uther stood there a while, looking after the strange creature. "How does it fly?" he wondered aloud. He sighed a little relieved as he went into his tent.

He had seen what the Zerg did to Garithos' troops and he had taken the greater part of his private army with him. Many men had lost their lives in a single afternoon. The Zerg were not to be underestimated, so much he had learned today.

From the reports he got from Garithos' men, he could gather the following story: convinced the Zerg were demons and most likely a great part of his hurt pride played a role in everything, Garithos' prepared his troops in order to rod out the Zerg. From Morlune's report they all had known Claire commanded at least 1000 Zerg and the Zerg Queen Rose. Of course Garithos' was ready to face more Zerg, but he wasn't ready to just how many he was about to face. The plan was simple. In the woods, the Zerg would have the surprise on their side, so aggravate them on three different fronts, so they would split up. Seeing as Claire was between 15 and 17 years old, he didn't expect much tactic knowledge of the girl, so she would split her troops. It worked, but it worked too good. The Zerg had a greater number, than Garithos expected, but not only that. They showed units, Morlune hadn't seen himself. The snake like Hydralisks, which shoot poisoned arrows, which on top of all things break through metal. Next the acid spitting Roaches, which can bury themselves and walk underground. The Zerg were not brainless, feral creatures. They foresaw a direct attack would cause too many losses, which could be the turnabout in the battle. So they sneaked inside with the Roaches, melted the towers and the rest was pure slaughter.

Or as I like to put it: A-click, aggressive march to the end of the map.

Uther decided to sleep over it a night, knowing the Zerg could kill him anytime they wanted, but he had faith in the young Claire. It was a long ride and there was still the issue with Arthas. Maybe the paladin should convince the king to send a messenger with orders the prince and his troops may return.

With these uneasy thoughts, Uther drifted off to sleep.

XXX

**Claire's base**

Ray was sitting on the rock, Shotgun next to him, both looking at the stars above them.

"You cannot see the stars this good back at home. City light and all."

"Screech, screech, screech?"

"Better." Ray touched his shoulder. "Rose got some awesome healing abilities."

"Screech, screech. Screech?"

"It was...something else. But nah, only if it is really necessary. You have to be human to understand. We like our privacy and if you lived your whole life alone in your mind, well for you it would be considering giving up the collective."

"Screech." Shotgun shrugged. "Screech, screech, screech. Screech, screech?"

"I know Claire since kindergarten. We never had many friends, because ...let's just say the two of us are a little unique for human standards. We had quite the normal life, going to school, meeting up with the few friends we had, getting scolded by our parents every now and then. God, I miss my sister. Must be the same for Claire and her older brother and little sister."

"Screech, screech."

"You didn't know? I thought since you're all connected you all know everything about each other."

"Screech. -Screech..."

"I guess it's something she's trying to come over herself. We don't even know how to return, since in this is a different universe, it means we have a different earth here. Who knows, maybe the one who gave Claire the power knows how we get back. You don't come to happen to know who it was."

Shotgun shook his head. "Too bad. Hey, don't make this face, Claire won't abandon you guys. I know her good enough to say this."

"Screech."

Shotgun wanted to resume looking at the stars, when suddenly that one smell, which had bothered him back with Morlune, was in the air again. He held his head up and sniffed the air like a dog and followed the scent.

"What's up bro?" Ray asked. Seeing as the ling was too occupied following the scent, Ray followed him. He wondered whether lings had better senses as dogs or not. He read in one book a Zerg queen experimenting with a dog and created a Roverlisk. Every Zerg and Protoss died on the planet because of some kind of Xel'Naga creature, which absorbed both species or rather their DNA. It did the same with Terrans, but spit them out again in one piece, leaving them deserted for a few weeks on the planet. Fun fact, the Terrans awakened that thing with nukes, the thing absorbing the energy of the explosion. It was General Duke by the way, who lost the battle and went for the nukes.

Ray was brought out of his train of thought, when he suddenly noticed he and Shotgun weren't on the creep anymore. "Shotgun, where exactly are we heading?" Ray asked. Shotgun looked around and finally noticed himself they weren't in the safe zone anymore. But the smell was at strongest at the point they were standing. Yet neither of them could find the source. This was highly unnerving.

"Let's go back. Don't wanna run into any surprises, especially not in the dark." Ray said to the Zergling. He had a fireball lit, which was flying above his palm and right now he was waving the only light source around, nervously.

Shotgun had better eyes, than the human, but couldn't make out the source of the strange smell. It was close that much he knew, but the shivering human next to him was irritating. "Can you at least tell me what exactly we're looking for here?"

Shotgun hissed, telling the human to shut the fuck up. There was something and he didn't like it one bit. The scent was moving, but only a little and five seconds later it stopped. The scent had to be a living being, humanoid. It was no troll. Shotgun memorized the smell of those guys a long time ago. No this smell, he couldn't actually identify, but his DNA told him he knew it already. But what exactly was this 'it'?

"We should at least call some reinforcements. I'm gonna set the entire forest on fire at this rate."

Ignoring the human, Shotgun pinpointed the smell. He positioned himself, still acting as if he was still trying to find the source. The next moment he charged some energy and only a split second later, with the little energy he collected, he jumped.

His head got stuck in a tree.

"Fail..." Ray sweatdropped. He lit out the fire, went over to the Zerg, took two legs of the ling and tried to pull him out. "God damn it! You seriously need to make a diet. Okay, one more time. HMMMMM!"

At the fifth try he finally managed it, the Zerg landing on his face.

"Mmmph, mmph!" (Get off!) He punched the Zerg on the sides.

Shotgun finally stood up and Ray took several breaths before he got up himself. "Let's go home. I had enough craziness for one day."

XXX

**Jim's Viking; the next morning**

The rebel leader wondered what crazy things would happen today, as he went to the river, to splash some water onto his face. With a teen like Claire leading the local Zerg, something was doomed to happen, although she had planned to take it slow and increase the numbers of Roaches and Hydralisks first.

Although the creep area was considered to be safe, Raynor took the risk and always wandered upstream where no creep was inside the water. He still had some shots for his pistol left, but maybe he should consider learning swordfight. He didn't have any special abilities like the rest and there was no way in hell he'd get infested.

As he and his troops had been stranded on Char, they at least had more than enough ammo to last for two years. Happens, when you bring over 300 men and less than 50 survived the trip.

He looked down at his own reflection, wondering how his men were doing, if Mengsk already knew he was 'dead', would Valerian still try to attack Char? Even if Matt wouldn't work with the prince of the dominion. He had seen it after all in Ray's laptop. Valerian could try alone, but it was incredible how the rebel leader's absent could turn the tides.

These days Raynor often thought of Kerrigan. He noticed the nightmares he kept having stopped, after he landed or crashlanded on Azeroth. Maybe Sarah had been sending the dreams again, like during his time on Char. If so, she must have noticed his absents and maybe she was curious enough to look for him. Hopefully it wouldn't cost the lives of his men.

A Zerg patrol crossed his way, again not bothering the rebel leader. This time two Hydras and a Roach were with the five Zerglings. It still felt alien having so much Zerg nearby and they have no intention in killing you. He watched as the small group disappeared in the bushes.

"Strange indeed."

Raynor jumped around and took out his pistol, after hearing a voice _inside _his head. It took him only a second later to recognize it, before the dark templer decloaked himself.

"Zeratul."

Raynor was surprised and happy to see his old friend on this planet. "Haha, wow. Didn't expect to see you ever again, after I crashlanded here. What are you doing here?"

Zeratul seemed to sigh. "Fate seems to have a twisted sense of humor. My ship was damaged, as I encountered a Tal'Darim patrol, while investigating an old Xel'Naga temple. I managed to flee from the planet, but due to the damage, I wasn't able to jump to the coordinates I originally tended to, thus leading me into a black hole."

"You too?" Raynor asked. Zeratul raised an eyebrow. "My boys and I showed the Terran public what Mengsk had done to Kerrigan 4 years ago, along with a few sentences he probably regrets ever speaking in his life. While we were on Korhal, we stumbled some secret documents about some workers getting 'fired'. The documents pointed to a facility in Castanar, officially just used to storage a bunch of stuff. As we found out, Mengsk somehow created his own Hybrid."

Zeratul's eyes widened, but he kept silent waiting for Raynor to finish his story. "We decided to blow everything up, releasing the Hybrid in the process. While we ran for it, we found an old transporter. I wanted my men to get out first, but it left me with no time to enter. As I looked for another way out, I found a Viking. Maybe I would have made it, if I actually knew how to fly that thing, but the shockwave of the explosion pushed me into a black hole. I woke up on this planet, meeting the local Zerg and their...queen."

Zeratul nodded. Knowing the Protos, he had observed Raynor and the Zerg for the past days. It wasn't his style to openly introduce himself, not before getting a picture of the situation he was in.

"You can't leave either?"

"Indeed. As for the time being, we have no choice but to stay and live through the conflict the locals have."

Raynor let out a sigh. When he saw Zeratul, he'd hoped this was his ticket off the planet, but his hopes were crushed in a matter of seconds. Raynor looked over the way towards the Zerg base. "So" he turned his head to Zeratul "I don't suppose you're going to come with me to the Zerg, right?"

"Actually, I've hoped you could introduce me to their young queen."

Raynor was surprised to hear this from Zeratul of all people. The Zerg had done many things to his people and especially himself.

"I am rather intrigued by her actions. It seems the Zerg are mirroring the actions of the girl."

"What do you mean 'mirroring'?"

"The young Claire doesn't seem to be interested in neither destruction of the other races, nor conquering entire planets. She has a sense of family and seems to see the Zerg as her family, thus making the Zerg less hostile, but still very protective."

Raynor couldn't disagree. In actual battle, the Zerg were as he remembered them. But outside it was a completely different matter. Those Zerg who are not on patrol duty or anything, spent the time differently. Running around, climbing trees, some went swimming or played with the larvae. Shotgun liked break dancing in his free time and more than one time he saw him holding a conversation with Ray. How the boy understood the ling without being connected was far beyond Raynor. After the battle the other day, Ray cut the connection with the swarm again, leaving him a bit dazed for 10 minutes.

"Well, I guess it can't hurt." Raynor said shrugging.

He expected Zerg to come immediately as they entered the creep carpet and they came. Different kind of Zergs, eyed the Protos who was with the Terran, but they kept their distance. At the clearing Shotgun, Rose, Ray and Claire were already waiting for the two to arrive.

Claire had her regular smile on her face and seemed rather excited in the good way. The rest seemed agitated by the presence of the dark templer, knowing dark templer were the only people who could kill any Zerg for good, which included Claire.

"So uhh..." Raynor began, scratching the back of his head "this here is Zeratul, dark prelate and one of my best friends. He wanted to meet you, Claire."

Rose immediately stood protectively before Claire, before Zeratul had the chance to formally introduce himself. Her wings twitched at the mere presence of the templer. Shotgun was growling dangerously.

"Guys, keep it down." Claire softly scolded the two. "Nice to meet ya Zeratul. The name's Claire, but I guess you already know about us. I sensed you a couple of times, just didn't know it was you." she explained.

Zeratul was mildly surprised at how developed the senses of the young Terran were. Or could he call her already a Zerg? He himself bowed and stretched his arm, opening his hand, a sign of peace. "It is a pleasure to meet you young Claire. And I'm sorry for my actions."

"No need." Claire winked. "So what brings you here? Don't tell me you crashlanded, like Jimmy-boy here."

Zeratul simply repeated his story. Ray whistled as he heard the Protos got sucked in the same black hole as Raynor. Turned out Zeratul already knew, Ray and Claire new everything about him and what was supposed to happen on this planet. Claire immediately created more drones to increase the amount of detector units. Too bad she didn't have access to the Overseer yet.

"Well, welcome aboard." She held out her hand. It took Zeratul a second, but he shook her hand. Her smile grew even wider. "Alrighty. I need to take care of some things. Laters!"

Claire skipped over to the evolutionary chamber. "Ray Silvers. Get ready for some crazy days." Zeratul raised an eyebrow and looked over to Raynor. "You'll see soon enough."

"I am Rose and I will keep an eye on you templer."

"SCREECH!"

"That's Shotgun. And what he said, I better don't translate." Ray sweatdropped.

"You understand him?" Zeratul asked. Ray shrugged. "When you spent most of your free time with Zerg, you get bored and try to hold a conversation with them." Ray answered. "You don't happen to stumble over mineral fields or vespene geysers?" Zeratul shook his head.

"Too bad. Oh well, I might as well inform you about Azeroth."

Claire meanwhile experimented on some Zerg strains. Her new body allowed her to interact with the chamber and what she saw was simply amazing. Her old human brain would have collapsed, but suddenly it all made sense to her. "Wow, Abathur sure is a genius handling all this stuff."

She decided to try something simple first, but even with simple things, she was limited on the things she could do. She needed the stage 3 strains for what she planned or new DNA. She already combined Troll regeneration with Roach regeneration. The result was pure awesomeness. It only took quite a lot of bio energy to involve it into the swarm. At this rate her swarm wouldn't grow as planned.

She frowned. Terenas surly informed the other races already and there was a high chance the Zerg would be attacked again. And when the actual mages came into play, the next victory wouldn't be that easy. Throwing another defense upgrade in, she left.

"Rose, I'm gonna look around for some DNA we might use. Make sure no one loses his or her cool around Zeratul."

"My queen, are you sure it is wise to let the dark templer so near to the swarm cluster?" she asked. Claire smiled genuinely. "Don't worry. Zeratul ain't one of those fanatics. His skills as a dark templer might come in useful in the future and even he can't destroy us all alone."

Zeratul meanwhile felt the gazes of multiple Zerg on him, as he was looking around the environment, the Zerg had claimed their territory. Those Zerg here showed signs of individuality. Instead of the mindless killing machines, those showed clearly emotions like distrust and anger. He couldn't blame them and it would be a lie to say he didn't felt the same way towards the Zerg.

The Zerg queen Rose picked his interest. According to James Raynor she was hatched like a normal queen. He could feel the potential of Rose. It didn't reach the potential of Sarah Kerrigan, but he had little doubt the queen was able to reach it one day. If that is the case, what kind of potential must Claire Nights wield, controlling all of the local Zerg? She detected him while he was cloaked, but Kerrigan was able to do so as well. Yet Claire still looked like a normal human, which could easily be explained through the Zerg sequences keeping up a disguise. Still he wondered...

XXX

**Capital City; Terenas' Castle; several days later**

"You can't possible negotiate with demons!" shouted the elf ambassador. Elves are known for keeping their cool for a long time, even getting on the other races nerves with it sometimes. This must be record time an elf ambassador loses his cool.

"If you have problems with a demon invasion, why didn't you tell us sooner?!"

"I told you as soon as I heard of these Zerg appearing in my lands." Terenas replied, keeping his cool. Somehow the situation was reversed to what normally happened when Elf and Human talk together and one of them loses his or her cool.

"So far they only helped my people against the undead and did nothing to aggravate us. They're lead by a human girl, who-"

"You can't possible belief this! Surely your men must have fallen for some kind of trick!"

"If you're so convinced, then why don't the two of us talk personally to them?"

The elf ambassador was scandalized hearing this. Before he could reply something, a soldier entered the room. "Forgive me for interrupting, but Lord Uther has returned." Terenas nodded. "Bring him here."

The soldier bowed. "You may be interested in this as well, ambassador."

Uther came in only a few seconds later. He bowed before his king and greeted the ambassador in the normal respective way.

"Lord Uther, report."

Terenas wanted to know exactly what happened during the battle between Garithos' troops, who invaded his own lands in the process, and the Zerg swarm. The last days Uther gathered as much information from the surviving men as he could and had now a clear, horrible picture about what happened.

Underestimating the Zerg, Garithos used a simple tactic a beginner could have fallen for. Well the Zerg did, only they had far greater numbers than anyone expected. Each assault group had been lead by a different commander. An oversized Zergling, although Terenas had still no idea how one looked like in the first place, a Zerg queen and a human boy, supposedly the friend of the 'Queen'. She and her companion James Raynor firstly tried a diplomatic approach. As Garithos gave the order to capture the two, the Zerg attacked. It was pure slaughter from there on out. The outpost had been overrun quickly. The main base had better defenses and before the Zerg attacked, Uther himself heard Claire giving Garithos to save the rest of the lives of his men. Terenas already knew the answer. What was more, the Zerg showed new units, spitting acid and snake like creatures shooting poison arrows _through metal._

At the end Terenas had a good idea of what the Zerg were really capable of. The elf ambassador had a hard time believing it and in the end he blamed the human commanders arrogance for loosing the fight. Surely the Zerg couldn't be that strong.

Well he was about to find out, because the next day the Zerg were literally knocking at the front door.

XXX

**A few days earlier; near the coast**

The scouting Overlord Clair had sent ahead found the undead base under siege of the humans. So far neither side made any progress, so she decided to help out. It took one more day, than she thought, seeing as how many more Overlords she needed to transport the units she needed.

10000 Lings

2500 Hydras

2500 Roaches

2 Drones (you'll see next chapter)

Her swarm was growing each day, she didn't save anything for evolving into the next stage, but she made a third Lair, meaning it wouldn't take long until her swarm reached the size of her personal set goal of 50000 Lings and half amount the other units. Enough to even be a threat to the Capital City, but not Dalaran. Too many mages at one spot. She wondered which was harder Silvermoon or Dalaran. Meh, whatever. Today it was bashing the undead.

Luckily the first three months nothing happened or her swarm wouldn't be as great as it was now.

The Overlords landed a good way off the undead base. Claire, Rose, Ray, Raynor, Shotgun and Zeratul took position on a hill, looking at the flesh masses.

"At this rate, there won't be any space left for the others." Ray shuddered. "How the hell do you guys fight the Zerg being that hard outnumbered?!" he asked Zeratul.

These were most of Claire's troops, being a complete overkill. Her home base was only guarded by 1000 Ling and each 500 Roaches and Hydras plus defensive structures. She was totally showing off.

"Maybe we'll see the Protos one day in action. Whatever, let's see if those guys down there got a little more skill, than the last." Claire put her fist into her palm. Ray rolled his eyes and opened his laptop. This time they didn't have a complete view on the enemy base, because the Gargoyles would simply shoot down the Overlords.

"There's a Lich down there this time. And they have way more troops than last time. Seriously are those Zombies all from Northrend?" he asked being a little skeptical. The rest saw a group of undead attacking the human base, but most were killed by Mortar Teams and canon towers even before they arrived. Still there was enough to do for the rest, humans swinging their swords, dwarfs using their guns and axes. Knights were there too, their horses trampling over the smaller undead. The attack was replied after some minutes.

"Same tactic as last time?" Ray asked. Claire shook her head. "They might have those stupid ghosts around."

As if on cue, one of the magical enchanted towers made the Scheme visible in blue light and the thing was taken out by a priest with holy light. "So much for being sneaky."

"Well we simply do it the old way." Claire shrugged. "The old way?"

"Head on through the wall."

"Oh man, I don't want to die."

Claire gave order to the Lair's to revive every Zerg that would temporary die today. There was no way they'd ace this battle.

She gave a mental order to 2000 Zerglings to become Banelings. She'd love to use the Overlords as bombers, but the Gargoyles made that difficult. Too many losses before they reached the defensive towers. Her Overlords couldn't fly into space, as long as they weren't at least stage 3. Just for the info, only drones, larvae and buildings could survive without an atmosphere including the lords and her. She needed stage 4 to really explore universe. She noticed daydreaming wouldn't help with her current problems.

Neither Raynor nor Zeratul had better ideas. The Zerg were born to overwhelm their enemies and with the collective no one needed to fear death.

The Lich was another obstacle. In WoW, they were no easy enemies, in fact officially it is recommended to fight them in groups. With two exceptions: you overlevel them or you're a pala. Bubble on, attack, heal, bubble. At least that was the way she made it. She didn't remember all the changes of Cataclysm and afterwards she was tired of buying another expansion.

She noticed everyone was looking at her, waiting for her command. She shook her head clear. "Sorry, guess I'm thinking a little much."

Zeratul shook his head. "It is often better to think your own strategy thoroughly, than to rush things."

She laughed. "Well, Zerg are famous for their rushes, but in that case I guess we're already overtime. They're a little occupied with the humans, so we should attack before they notice us."

Her Overlords took over the command of the Zerg. Actually Zerg and Humans didn't have that much difference in military hierarchy. A single commander couldn't handle a whole army, he needed lieutenants, captains, sergeants, and even during training they had so called recruit sergeants. Raynor had been one of them during his time in boot camp.

"Alright, let's give the humans a hand. Catch me a few necromancers, while you're at it."

It didn't go unnoticed by Zeratul and Raynor how she didn't consider herself human anymore. Ray was used to it. "As long as she's herself, she can be a zombie in my book." he replied to the two.

XXX

**Human Base; Commander's Tent (I don't know the actual term)**

Morlune should have taken the day off or something. The base was more properly guarded, than expected. Luckily there was no more reinforcements form Northrend, for whatever reason. Along with him there was a high elf mage. Her name was Delil (thanks WoW name generator). The two were looking at the map, both letting out sighs of annoyance. It was a frustrating situation. They couldn't attack head on as it would be suicide. The attacks of the undead were only there to keep the allied troops of elves and humans at bay. Since their enemies didn't get any more reinforcements, they must be either planning or waiting for something.

In either case it couldn't be good. They needed to break through somehow. Ships were not available at the moment. They'd have to wait for another week. But who knows what will happen in a week.

"My lady! My lord!"

Or in the next seconds. His second in command stormed into the tent. "What is it?"

"The *pant* Zerg *pant*...they...*pant*"

Morlune's eyes widened. "The Zerg are here?" the paladin echoed. Delil had spent the last few months around humans, meaning she of course heard the rumors around humans. The Zerg were the newest one, oversized insects, which helped evacuating a few civilians. According to said civilians they were lead by a human teenage girl. Well today she would see how much of this was true. She waved back her red hair, her green eyes focusing on the second in command. Her skin had more color, but luckily was just a little red instead of sun burnt or completely brown, like most people got from being so long out on the field. She missed the gardens of Dalaran. At least her red/white robe was still clean, thanks to magic of course.

The second in command finally had his breath back. "Indeed sire. This time they're here in greater number and they have Zerg with them, we haven't seen before. The young Ray awaits you."

Morlune nodded and headed out, followed by a curious Delil. Oversized insect was actually a pretty fitting description. There was one of those maybe dog like creature with the boy? The only thing that was off with him, were his strange clothes. 'This space is unoccupied' she translated in her mind. At least he had humor.

"'Sup bro, sup sis."

Did he really call her 'sis'? Short for sister?

"Claire just sent me over to tell you guys, we're going to help you out."

"Your friend is bored again?" Morlune asked. Totally taken off guard, Ray and the Zerg next to him erupted into laughter. "Dude, you already spent too much time with us." he snickered between the lines.

He shook his head. "We wanted to get rid of the undead. And I think Claire wants to show off with her swarm. By the by" he turned to the elf girl "Ray Silvers. And you?"

"Delil Sunwave." she replied. He blushed and looked away immediately. She sighed. Another human falling for her beauty. "A-anyway." he shook his head clear. "Do you guys have a map?"

Morlune nodded, but first he turned to his second in command. "Prepare the troops."

"Sire!"

The three went inside. Ray took a quick look over the map, while placing his laptop on the table. Delil was fascinated as she saw the object showing the image of the battlefield.

"Shotgun is leading a little distraction on the Westside. Meanwhile the Banelings are charging or rather rolling to blow up the defense on the Eastside."

The two saw round insects filled with some kind of green liquid positioning them, while Zerglings and two other units he hadn't seen charged at the Westside. Ray quickly explained the functions about the other units.

"Okay, from which way do you guys attack?" he asked.

Morlune and Delil looked at the map. She pointed her finger at one point. "When we attack from south, we'll force them to split their army even more."

Morlune agreed to this plan. Ray looked down at the Zergling who stared a few seconds into space, before nodding. "See you on the field." he left the tent, riding on the ling to the battlefield.

He was not really eager to return, but he kind of had no choice in that matter. When he arrived at the field, the battle already was going on inside the enemy base. The Roaches melted the enemy towers, although it took longer as with the human towers back at Garithos' base. A few Zerg fell as the Spirit and Nerubian Towers shot into the masses. Unlike in the game, they did damage on multiple enemies. No surprises here, but it didn't help the undead anyway.

The Zerg were now stronger and it took more than one shot to kill even a ling. The enemy magic users were the bigger problem. The Zerg had yet to adapt to magic, so the necromancers were the bigger problem. They even knew some attacks from WoW, like the Shadow Bolt. Speaking of, Ray never tried using light or darkness as an element. He made a mental note and decided this wasn't the time for experiments.

He wanted to freeze the Necromancer, only to notice he had an ice shield. And there was only one person he could have gotten from it.

"Insolent creatures! No one can defeat the Scourge!"

"Seriously dude? Look around. We're winning."

Okay maybe Ray should have shut his trap, 'cause unlike Claire, he couldn't be reborn. The Lich turned towards him. "A kid? Whatever, you will all perish!" The Lich shit a Frost Nova, freezing Ray and every Zerg around him. Ray had never felt this much cold in his life. He wanted to scream, wanted to shout, wanted to run or even use a fire spell, but he couldn't move and couldn't focus. The Zerg around him were dead and the only reason he survived, was because the ling he'd been riding had taken most of the hit.

"Winning? Hahahaha! Don't worry. You will be a good servant as a Ghoul. Good-ARRGH!" The lich was thrown away by the explosion of a psi-bomb. Rose had fought her way to Ray and was now using Transfusion on him.

"So cold..." he muttered "I owe you." he said. Rose helped him up. "You should consider becoming one of the swarm." she told him. Ray hung his head. "Yeah, I'm weak, huh?"

An explosion caught their attention. The Mortar Teams started shooting the towers on the North side. "Grrr..."

They turned towards the source of the voice. The Lich had regained his composure and was now glaring daggers at the Queen. "This guy is finished." Ray lost his cool and started charging up a fireball in his hand. Rose unleashed a psi wave, finishing multiple zombies and skeletons. The Lich was thrown away a bit.

"How do you like this?"

Ray threw the bigger fireball at the Lich which exploded and set the area on fire. On the downside, Ray's stamina was gone for good, as he knelt down on the ground. The Lich was still alive, as alive as an undead can be.

In the meantime Delil and Morlune were busy organizing their troops. Every now and then Delil would cast a blizzard to kill multiple groups of undead. All in all she had the feeling she and her forces weren't needed. The Zerg did a great job themselves. Some buried themselves underground, only to pop up at a different location. The Hydralisks unleashed a deadly rain of poisoned spines and the Zerglings were too fast for the remaining towers to hit them.

Delil had, like any mage, a sense for magic and she noticed magic being used at the main Zerg front. As an agent of Dalaran, she had to investigate every magic the enemy uses. She quickly informed Morlune and didn't even ask for his permission as she took off.

She soon found the source of the feeling she was getting. She found Ray, the Lich and a Zerg woman facing off. Around them were the bodies of several dead Zerg, but even more undead had been eliminated. The Lich was the problem at the moment. Deciding to help their...'allies' Delil prepared a fire spell, which set everything around the Lich on fire. Rose and Ray turned their heads. Ray nodded and turned back to the Lich, only to notice a group of necromancers came to aid their master. When Ray fought he focused on dodging, keeping distance and shooting spells. However it was impossible for him to dodge all the spells and he got hit several times. Delil was surprised he didn't turn to ashes or died, but he let out a scream and was on the ground, shaking with his entire body.

What was he thinking anyway? Delil mentally sighed and prepared a blizzard, which would take care of the necromancers, only to be distracted by at least a few thousand of Zerg who ripped the enemy mages apart. Looking around she found out there was no undead left, aside from the Lich. She could feel Morlune's aura of light and another one, one way more aggressive and it wanted to see blood.

Rose mentally cursed. She had failed and now her queen was angry. The Zerg prepared a path for their queen. Delil would have doubted that human girl really was controlling those monsters if not for her glowing blue eyes and the aura she felt coming from her. A man was keeping Morlune on distance, it must be the other ally of the Zerg queen, the paladin told the high elf about.

The Lich stood up, from the outside unfazed, but he was surprised the undead had been overrun. He was more surprised by the pissed off girl, about the amount of power she was showing. Claire was mad. She didn't think she acted on instinct, using all the power and her own bio energy. She lifted the Lich into the air. Before he could question what she was doing, he felt pain going through his body, a lot of pain. He screamed as he felt the energy inside him being twisted, his mind invaded. He was a human again, went through his own life again.

His parents abandoned him at the age of 4, showing signs of being capable of using demonic magic, how none of the kids at the orphanage would play with him. The local priests were fanatics, not helping him, but trying to exorcise him with old methods, which were already being proven to only inflict pain.

How he was one day found by a necromancer, being taught to hate the living, although there was not much to teach, how he became one of the undead and finally a Lich.

Claire let the Lich go through the painful memories of the orphanage over and over again, while twisting with what was left of his body inside him. She would have gone on for longer, if not for the fireball, which finished the Lich' existence.

Claire looked around ready to tear Delil apart, when she heard a voice.

"That was for the fucking Frost Nova."

Claire's eyes returned to normal and she felt exhaustion waving over her. She was supported by two Hydralisks, while Rose performed another few transfusions on Ray, trying to make up for what she thought was her mistake. Ray finally lost consciousness. He never thought there was something more painful, than the lightning strike back at home.


	5. Chapter 5

_**5. Shopping in the capital**_

**A/N: Sorry for long delay, I was in hospital. I'm not feeling good and I think the result is, this chapter not coming out as good as I planned it.**

**Please give me your thoughts. I hope I'll fully recover before posting the next chapter.**

**On the road to the capital city**

After getting multiple checkups, Ray dismissed himself into an Overlord, not feeling good after getting hit by multiple spells. It was nighttime and most of the troops at least seemed to have gone to sleep. Well, it is hard to sleep when next to your tent is an oversized alien insect buried and ready to strike.

Zeratul decided not to show himself to the troops of the alliance for obvious reasons. Claire was sitting with Rose next to a fire. She had been staring for a while into the fire, her thoughts closed away from the rest of her swarm, which made every Zerg a little itchy.

"My queen, may I ask what is your mind?" Rose finally broke the silence. Claire let out a sigh and just noticed how her swarm was on edge. "Sorry, just needed some time for myself. Haha, an old human habit. There's some stuff I need to figure out on my own."

She let out another sigh.

"What I can share with you guys is I'm worried about the Burning Legion. Once they notice we're way stronger than the undead, I'm pretty sure we'll get a 'visitor' in the future. Then there's the thing with Kerrigan. I'm pretty sure she'll try to take over the control. And right now, I'm way too weak to face her. Then we got the problem with the other races here on Azeroth. I'm pretty sure if we play our cards right, we could win and take over this world, but I don't want that. Not to mention the dragons, demons and whatnot are on a complete different caliber. Last but not least, I wanna get Ray infested, so I don't have to fear of him dying in a battle someday. But...urrghh."

"He doesn't want. He already embraced the swarmed, yet he still refuses to become fully one of us." Rose finished for Claire. The girl nodded.

"I totally understand him, but...he said only if his life was on the line. But what if it is too late? Moreover, the Infestor strain is at stage three available. I don't think we'll get into that stage anytime soon with so many people against us." And another sigh. She did it often that evening.

Rose placed herself next to her 'mother' and hugged her. Claire didn't mind and placed her head on Rose's shoulder until she fell asleep.

Delil was too fascinated of the Zerg to sleep. Well mages of Dalaran had the habit of getting easily excited of the unknown, no matter how it looked. The creatures in the dungeons were proof enough for this.

Claire gave her permission to study the Zerg without a second thought. Delil was allowed to take dead bodies of the Zerg with her, much to the dismay of a lot of soldiers, and to check on the living Zerg, as long as she didn't do anything to them. Claire just warned the elf about the Hydralisk poison, the Roach acid and the random mutation of the Zerg DNA, meaning Delil could accidently get infested when she studied the bodies deeper. First Delil didn't really listen, until Claire explained to the elf that she'd have no choice, but to follow every order Claire gave her and the Zerg would know everything about the elves Delil knew, which was quite a lot, actually.

From there on Delil decided to wait in inspecting the dead bodies until she was in Dalaran, where she could take measurements against such things as getting infested.

Some wizards teleported the bodies and themselves to Dalaran, with the same warning Claire had given Delil, who was now touching a Zergling on the back, trying to figure out if the different things on its back had a meaning or were just for show and if they had a meaning, what kind of meaning they had. Ray just so happened to pass.

"I thought you were sleeping."

"Water break." he replied. He still didn't feel good at all, but at least he could walk on his own again.

"Watcha doing?"

"I'm studying this Zergling. I have permission." The elf woman seemed annoyed. "What could these be for?" she asked more herself. Ray went over to her."These are adrenaline glands or as Claire and I like to dub it: speedling upgrade."

"Upgrade?" Delil asked.

"Zerglings aren't normally born with it, however it's easy for a brood to evolve those things. It increases the speed of the Zerglings of at least 50%. Thus the name speedlings. It's one of the easier things to understand: more adrenaline means more speed."

Delil nodded understanding. Seeing as Ray seemed rather talkative and if you ignore his random comments and only focus on the information, you could get a lot out of him. And since he obviously had a crush on her, Delil decided to get some info out of him. To his defend she had to say, he didn't bug her and was actually avoiding her in order to keep himself under control. She decided for an indirect approach.

"I'm sorry for the losses you had to endure today."

Ray was obviously surprised by that comment but shrugged it off. "Meh, Zerg never truly die."

"Come again?" The elf blinked.

"When a Zerg dies, his mind returns to the consciousness until said Zerg is reborn. The actual reason I'm not banging my pipe over Claire's head until she loses consciousness, and drag her back home."

"I see." Delil didn't expect to hear this.

"So much for your plan to assassinate Claire. Haha." It was obviously meant as a joke.

Delil caught herself again and asked her next question. "I was wondering about something. Do you mind explaining it to me?" she asked in her normal tone. Ray wasn't that dumb.

"If I can. Rose or Claire would be more useful though."

"I was wondering about those Overlords. Since I'm a mage, I know they're not flying with magic."

"As far as I know it is a mixture of gas which is not flammable and lighter than air. A great part is Helium, but I don't know about the rest." He looked over to one of the Overlords.

"Lighter than air?"

"Air well...is a mixture of mostly...oh god my chemical teacher would kill me if she'd see me lost to such a simple question."

'Simple question?' Delil thought to herself. Teacher? Those two actually learned about this? Where did they come from?

"Uhhh...most part was Helium, I think...then Oxygen, the thing we need to live, then...arrgh I only CO2, which is not much. There're others too, but it won't get into my head right now." Ray ruffled his hair in frustration. "My chemical teacher is going to KILL me if she finds out. Ow...sorry, but can we talk tomorrow? My body is acting weird again...stupid spells."

"Of course. Goodnight."

"'Night." Ray let out a yawn. As he approached his Overlord it opened without Ray doing anything and the boy entered it.

XXX

**Orbit around Haven; Hyperion Bridge**

"Captain on the bridge."

Matt dismissed his subordinates as he entered the bridge. The deal with Moebius turned out to be a trap and the Hyperion made an emergency jump in order to retreat. They were as lucky as fucking hell, getting only minor damage. The biggest damage had gotten the Yamato canon. The Hyperion needed to land somewhere in order to repair this part of the ship.

Since Matt planned on contacting the Protos anyways, they decided for Haven. "Sir, Dr. Hanson is the communicator."

"Thanks officer." Matt nodded and walked over to the more or less private communicator. After the static cleared, Ariel Hanson's face appeared on screen. "Dr. Hanson, it's good to see you again."

"Good to see you too Matt. Where's Jim?" she asked. Matt took a deep breath. So far only the Raiders knew about the commanders fate.

xxx

"My god...Jim..." Dr. Hanson was obviously in shock upon hearing it. Moreover was she in shock on Matt planning to go through the black hole on a long shot. He wasn't suicidal, he just planned something crazy. But hey, the commander did crazy things all the time and got away with it, so why not?

Ariel gave the Hyperion coordinates to land, so Swann and the rest of the crew could perform the last repairs on the Yamato canon.

An hour later Matt and most of the Raiders were in scattered around in the different settlements, part to help the people, part to just have fun, like going into bars. Matt had the footage of the Hybrid with him and showed it to Ariel who was in pure shock at what she saw.

"What is this...monster?!" she asked.

"A protos-zerg-hybrid." Matt stated as a matter of fact. "From the limit knowledge we have, something else than Terran, Protoss or Zerg created those things. Most likely a Xel'Naga."

"A Xel'Naga? The ones who created the other two species?" she asked. Matt nodded.

"Do you remember the crystal in the laboratory?"

The doc nodded. "I have...taken a look in it. And..." Matt couldn't describe on what he saw. He planned on showing the crystal to the rest of the Protoss, so they could prepare against this threat or actually do something right now at this very moment.

"Matt...do you really belief he...survived?" It was hard to say the words, but Ariel had to say it. "To be honest, I know I'm grasping for straws here, but no one ever traveled through one, right?"

"You sound like Jim." Ariel commented. "I'll go and help Stetman. I think he could use every help he could get."

"Thank you Ariel."

"It's nothing." the doc waved off.

Matt rubbed his temples before he walked out of the main base of Haven. There was not much he could do now, except wait for the Protos. He might as well enjoy the fresh air, while he had the chance.

Half of the Raiders had their regular orders, the other half was enjoying their free time, as much as they were able to enjoy it with their commander missing. Haven might as well be called heaven. The weather was like on earth, there were minerals and vespene gas everywhere, the ground was perfect for farming and most of all the dominion had no influence here, mostly because Haven is next door to Protos territory.

The people here were oblivious to the never ending conflict in the sector. Matt wished this for all humans.

By chance he found Tychus, still in his marine suit. He's literally pissed off ever since the incident with Moebius. He still had the contract with those guys and they were the only people who could get him out of his portable prison. The captain was still suspicious of the man, who might as well have a gun hold against his forehead. There was no way getting Tychus out of the armor, without activating the kill switch.

Tychus just grunted at the captain and walked towards the next best bar. Truth to be told, Tychus had mixed feelings about the deal he had with Mengsk, but it was either that or becoming one of those guys who were prisoners of their own mind, willing to go into death like the Zerg Banelings.

Mengsk of course knew about Raynor's demise, but the Emperor was smart enough not to make it public yet. First he wanted to get rid of all Raiders and for that he needed a spy. Tychus was perfect for the job and once Arcturus announced Raynor's death, the rest knew Findlay was a spy. It would take ages to get a new one into their ranks.

Second with Findlay's help, Arcturus may be able to get rid of all Raiders at once.

XXX

**Azeroth; Road to the Capital; the next day**

The way Zeratul was secretly laughing at Raynor, the rebel leader was seriously considering in getting himself a horse, instead of riding a Zergling. Since there were foot soldiers with them, the dark templer had no problem keeping up. Claire checked his position every now and then.

_Nothing personal, but you ARE a threat to my swarm. Sorry._

Ray recovered enough to ride and smack Claire over the head, whenever he found it necessary. Morlune had a hard time hiding his laugh, whenever he saw the two arguing over trivial things, or whenever Claire had a stupid idea popping up in her head.

Every bit of bio energy was used in order to revive the fallen Zerg and to increase the number of the swarm. No one could blame her for her paranoia with the Zerg looking like demons and everyone probably going to hate them on sight. Since it was the road to the capital, there were a lot of people on the way, travelers, merchants and the whole stuff. Well, I guess you can think of the reactions as they see the Zerg traveling along troops of the alliance.

As the armies made a break, Ray decided to play some games on his laptop, while munching down some meat. Well he couldn't play Starcraft or Warcraft, but luckily there were other games on his laptop. There were almost only games on it, except for a few programs he once needed for school.

He was oblivious to the whispers amongst the alliance troops. They did it all day, ever since the Zerg teamed up with the humans, dwarfs and elves. He let his mind become absorbed into the game he was playing. Claire joined him out of boredom and eventually the two play Worms against each other.

HOX; Seaking; Mr. Bear; GaZprom

against

UdoLulu; Cracker; NaughtyGirl; The Worminator

Got any better names?

My better once are only laughable if you're German, so share me some ideas.

ANYWAYS

While the two kept on playing their little game, a few traveling priests were talking to the leading paladin of the convoy, asking him why in the name of the light he was traveling alongside demons. Rose was eavesdropping on them and shook her head. One day they would have to explain the difference between Zerg and demons. For one Zerg are still incapable of using magic. At least for the time being.

Morlune tried to reason with the priests who just kept on shouting; it was hard to make out words. Rose left her spot. During her walk through the alliance camp, more than one man looked at her, seeing her curves and all. She ignored them and kept her focus on the dwarfs who were polishing their various guns and mortar canons, eyeing the few Zerg who were not underground, some of them mumbling in their own foreign language.

It just so happened they camped near a farm. They came across a lot of them on their way here. The once around the cluster were abandoned, due to the surge plaguing the land. Claire gave order to leave the farmers alone. That of course didn't stop the farmers from coming out and watching the Zerg from a 'safe' distance. If shooting range of the Hydralisks could be called safe.

A few teens were there too, whispering among each other. From a nearby buried Roach, Rose could hear they were making bets on how close they would get to the Zerg. There were only male teens there.

A human girl, probably at the age of 8 or around this had been there too, but was shushed away by one of the boys who had the same hair color: auburn. Also she had the same brown eyes and slightly colorful skin, probably from working out in the field. The girl was actually the one closest to the Zerg, hiding behind a bush. Rose could sense her and the courage of the girl. Or was it stupor? Probably childish ignorance.

Whatever it was, Rose had orders to leave the farmers alone, so she didn't approach the girl inside the bushes. She simply overlooked the swarm and their 'allies' and waited for the caravan to go on. The dark templer was somewhat outside the caravan, on a hill where he could watch every party. Rose made sure he didn't go anywhere.

The bush next to Rose started rustling. It was the little girl, who was now very close to the Zerg queen. She smiled to herself. She orders to not approach the farmers, however it was a complete different matter if they approached her. Namely that one girl, who oh so sneakily tried to touch one of Rose's skeleton wings with her tiny hand. Rose humored herself and placed her wing so, the girl had it easier, only to in the next moment draw her wing closer to her main body.

The girl let out a groan, which Rose pretended to have overheard. The arm of the girl was now visible to everyone who would look. Finally the girl touched the wing, only to withdraw in the next moment. The girl wanted to run away, but stumbled and fell to her knees. Rose, who was now no longer disobeying her orders with approaching the girl, walked around and in front of the girl, who gasped and fell backwards. The Zerg queen chuckled and held out her hand.

"Here, let me help you." she spoke softly to the girl. The 8 year old hesitated, but eventually accepted the hand.

"Thank you." she mumbled shyly. Rose chuckled.

_Rose? Everything alright?_

_A little girl who stumbled, my queen. It seems a few children of the neighborhood have taken interest in our sudden appearance._

_Really?_

Rose showed Claire a few mental images on which the blonde laughed.

_Wow~. Just be careful of their parents. They might come with pitchforks and torches screaming: 'Burn the witch!'_

_I will my queen, I will. _Rose replied amused.

Rose bent down to the girl's level. "What was this all about earlier? Why did you want to touch me?" she asked.

"Ummm...!" The girl was about to panic, when Rose ruffled her hair. The girl jumped back. "I know already. I can read your mind you know?"

"R-really?!" The girl's voice was a mixture of being amazed and being afraid. "Don't worry, I'm not reading yours. I read those of your friends. It looks like you won the bet, wouldn't you all agree?" she asked standing up, turning towards the direction of a group of trees. There were some hasty movements and one guy even fell out of the tree. When he spotted Rose looking down on him, he screamed and ran away as fast as the road runner.

Rose held back a laughing fit. At least the one who appeared to be her brother was still here, although he seemed pretty shaken. Rose scanned him with her eyes and a little bit with her mind. Nothing out of the ordinary, he was at good health and had no magic or psionic powers.

"And you're?" she asked.

"...Derreck. Lisa, get over here." he demanded a little harsh. Lisa in return crossed her arms and huffed. "No."

"What?!"

"You said I wasn't tough enough to even get closed, but-"

"Shut up and get over here!"

Rose smiled a little evilly. "Scared?"

"..."

Rose laughed a little to herself. "There's no need to be. I have orders from my queen to not harm any humans and if you want to know more about us, you should have simply asked, like people normally do."

"Umm..." Lisa behind Rose spoke up. "What's your name and what are you?" she asked. Rose smiled at the girl's bluntness. "My name is Rose, as to what I am, we're called the Zerg."

"So you're no demons?"

"Idiot, of course they're demons."

Rose gave Derreck a glare, which seemed to pierce his very soul. "No, we're not demons, we're the Zerg. Memorize it well. We don't like it to be compared to those demons you speak of."

Rose suppressed the urge to let out a sigh. She took a look around and noticed the girl was gone. Her brother finally noticed too and took off, shouting her name. Rose already knew where the girl was.

Lisa was looking at one of the Zerglings dozing off in the sun. The queen watched with amusement as the girl slowly got closer and closer to the ling. Rose sensed her brother too afraid to get out of the bushes.

Just as Lisa was only two steps away, the ling decided to stand up and shook himself like a dog. The girl gasped and stood still, completely frozen on the spot. The ling looked at her, but soon lost interest and resumed to his nap.

The girl relaxed and resumed to her approach until she was face to face with the ling. She looked over to Rose, as if she was expecting something. "Can I...pet it?" the girl asked. Rose smiled genuinely. "If he doesn't mind, go on."

Lisa's eyes lit up and she carefully put a hand on the ling. Said Ling opened an eye, but let the girl be. Getting more courageous, the girl started stroking the ling, which let out some pure sounds. A smile crept onto the girl's face.

Meanwhile Claire had stopped playing with Ray and was watching the girl from the distance. She walked next to the queen. "We're leaving in half an hour. Having fun?" Claire grinned. She too sensed the boy in the bush and ignored him. She walked over to the girl and bent down next to her.

"You like him?" Claire asked. The girl looked up and nodded. Claire giggled. "I think so too." She started petting the ling too. "My queen, I apologize to disturb you, but it seems the alliance prepares to leave."

"Aw, too bad." she sighed. The ling got up too, taking his leave. "Are you going?" Lisa asked. "Yeah, looks like it. Maybe I'll swing by your place one day. By the way, my name is Claire. And yours?"

"...Lisa."

"Okay then Lisa, I hope we'll see each other again. Then I can show you the rest of my children." Claire petted the girl on the head and left together with Rose, who gave the girl a smile, before she followed.

xxx

"How long until we arrive?" the rebel leader asked the paladin. "Tomorrow morning." replied the paladin. "I would like for you all to wait outside, until I informed king Terenas about you."

Jim nodded and looked around. It kind of reminded him the first time he traveled around on Char with the Protos. There had been the Aiur Prtotos on the one side, the dark templer on the other and the Raiders in the middle. It surprised him the alliance didn't attack the Zerg yet. It surprised him more he was still with them. He just wished he'd have some ammo with him. As of now he was pretty much defenseless until he learned how to use another weapon. Maybe Zeratul could help him out?

Since he had nothing better to do, he decided he might as well clean up his weapon, at least partially, since he was still riding the Zergling. He couldn't exactly take it apart without losing any parts at the moment.

A few of the dwarfs had taken an interest in his weapon, but they didn't talk to him, since he was with the Zerg.

Ray was still playing on his laptop, using headphones. That Zerg virus messed up with some of his programs and now the AI was way smarter on higher difficulty, not to mention it was learning, using his own tactics. Oh well, more fun for him.

The priests from before were now travelling alongside them, probably reporting to the higher ups, whatever higher ups priests had.

Ray meanwhile experimented with light and darkness, so far no success. He felt a little drained every time he tried, but nothing happened. He tried the easiest thing in his opinion: creating a small ball of the element he wanted to use.

Delil came near him by coincidence and noticed the small amount of magic he tried to use. "What are you doing?" she asked.

"Experimenting. No success so far. Oh well, practice makes perfect."

Ray focused again on his hand. After an hour he gave up for the day. The rest of the trip went rather uneventful, if you ignore the stares and whispers and all.

XXX

**The next day, the capital of Lordaeron**

Morlune especially requested for the rest to wait outside the city, until they were called inside. Claire didn't really care about that one. After giving orders to her Zerg to bury themselves, she and Ray managed to enter the city, which was on high alert because of the Zerg. On top of that, they weren't exactly wearing ordinary clothes, especially Claire's Zergling pullover.

Claire luckily stole some gold from the necromancers and even her two Drones she brought with her looted some gold from the corpses after the battle. Originally she planned on bringing the Drones with her, but the humans were way too much on edge for that to happen.

None of the two ever saw Lordaeron city, since it was destroyed in WoW and became the capital of the undead. Claire led the way having the better sense of direction. To their delight, they noticed the humans on this world not only spoke, but also wrote English. Reading street signs wasn't a problem at all.

They entered the market square and looked around what the locals had to offer. Their stomachs grumbled at the various amount of food. The last months they only ate meat and here and there a few fruits. First thing they did was testing out one of the inns. The two stood out alone being teens, but the food was excellent. They ordered something with potatoes, a soup and steak. Ray tried to ignore the fact that they didn't have their world's cleaning standards.

Afterwards, the two walked to a clothes store. Being medieval style, the people in there had to take Claire's measurements in and make the clothes afterwards. Claire paid in advance and the two continued on.

By a smith, Ray bought himself a nice little dagger. The city was bigger than in the game, but they didn't expect it to be that big. They expected something of a lower middle big city from back home, but it was almost a really big city. There were more humans on this planet, than they expected. It certainly did explain how humans didn't face extinction yet or after the events of the frozen throne or any other event. They also had to consider there were a whole lot of human kingdoms during Warcraft 3, before the undead came.

"So, where next?" Ray asked, for once being in the mood of shopping and sightseeing. Claire thought about it and looked around, when her eyes fell on what seemed like a jewelry store. "That one!" she pointed out and walked ahead. Claire walked inside and Ray followed.

The stuff they had here looked totally awesome, all kinds of stones worked into rings and necklaces. "Claire, I don't think we have the money to buy even the cheapest thing they got here." Ray pointed out, looking at a golden necklace with a sapphire attached to it. The store owner had been busy handling another customer, until he could draw his attention to the other two.

"We should have raided a gold mine." Claire said, closing her eyes, focusing on her Overlords. She smiled as she found an abandoned goldmine near the cluster and ordered some Drones inside.

"Is something wrong with your friend?" the owner, a man with expensive clothes, asked. Ray waved off. "Don't worry, as long as she's not smiling, while having her eyes closed like that, everything is fine." Ray looked around one last time.

"We totally don't have the money." he sighed. "Come on, we can come back, when we have some money."

Claire opened her eyes. "Sorry for disturbing you." she said to the owner and left with Ray.

The two walked down the road and came to an area of the city, which could be taken as the part where the high society lived. People wore really stupid outfits, walked upwards and just had this kind of face.

"We shouldn't even bother going into the stores here." Ray said his part. "Well, I wanna look around anyways. Could come in handy memorizing the general layout of this city." she said. "No objections your honor." Ray replied.

The two got even more attention in this particular area with their clothes ripped off and Claire just being overall beautiful. Despite her clothes, she was probably the prettiest girl in town, which didn't go unnoticed by the younger male population. They didn't get how such a beauty could be together with a guy like Ray.

"We're being followed." Ray muttered as they came across a beautiful fountain. Claire simply nodded and waved her hair back, getting even more attention from the guys. One of them fainted and a thud sound could be heard.

"One down, one thousands to go." Ray commented. "I can easily overkill them. I just need to...you know." she grinned wickedly. Ray nodded. Once it was known she was the leader of the swarm, they'd have the shock of their lives.

"Let's take a break." Claire motioned to a bench next to the fountain. Ray let out a sigh and massaged the upper parts of his legs. "Soon it'll be four months. Wonder how the guys at home are doing." the boy said. Claire leaned back and looked into the sky. "Hey Ray."

"Hmm?"

"You think we'll ever get back to earth? Our earth?"

"We just need to get hit by lightning and we'll know."

Both of them laughed dryly.

"I miss them." she said afterwards.

"Yeah, me too. As they say, you only start to miss something when it is gone." Claire felt Zeratul's presence nearby, but ignored him. She acted like he wasn't there, disturbing their private talk. Ray was now looking into the sky too.

"I think when we've dealt with the undead, I'm going over to Kalimdor and make a base over there." Claire said all of the sudden. "The Orcs are there now or on their way, right? Huh, you think we can stop it? The destruction of Silver Moon and the world tree, I mean?" Ray asked.

Claire shrugged. "If I'll be able to get into stage three, no prob. It's just I can't risk it now." she frowned. Yeah, surly a lot of people would try and get advantage of the evolution state. It would only last a day, but if they hit the wrong timing, it would mean the end of their little advanture.

"Got it, you create a lair somewhere in nowhere, you enter the evolution and even if they kill you all, you'd all be reborn, silently planning revenge."

"Good idea." Claire said. She got up afterwards. "Let's go."

Ray got up and the two wanted to keep going, only to be stopped by a group of girls in seriously stupid outfits and way too much make up. What's up with medieval high society and their females addiction to make up?

"My, my, what do my eyes have to endure?"

_What's up with that talk? _Both earthlings thought. The girl had blonde hair like Claire, curled up, green eyes, wearing some kind of pink dress, white shoes, white gloves and carrying a white umbrella. She was the embodiment of the stereotypical jealous rival, the way she looked down on the two or at least tried, since she was smaller.

"Two _commoners._"

_Oh Satan, please save us._

"What does have filth like you doing here in _my _town?"

"I have spotted already two contradictions in that statement." Ray said, rubbing his temples. "Seriously, let's go. The perfume is making me all dizzy."

"I think we're lucky, we're JUST smelling the perfume." Claire said making a face.

"What was that?" the girl still kept her face. "You two don't seem to know who you're talking to. A hint. My father is the mighty Lord Andre III." she simply stated. The two in front of her blinked.

"What kind of sickness?" the two asked in union. Telepathy had its advantages. Everyone's jaw dropped after this statement and the two had something to laugh about.

"Now, seriously _girl: _First, we're not from here. Second, this city belongs to _king Terenas. _Third, just because rich people live here, doesn't mean we're not allowed here. Fourth, you look disgusting, just needed to say it." Ray finished.

Now a bunch of guys were surrounding them, glaring at him. "I don't suppose you're from Taco Bell."

...

"Where the hell did you get THAT idea from?" asked Claire, slightly disturbed. Ray shrugged.

"Dunno, I just thought of South Park, then Deadpool and the two combined together in my hand as Tacos. I think it's the internet and the cola withdrawal." he told her.

"And I think you're more nuts than I am." she replied, sweatdropping. "Where did you get the pipe from?"

"Business secret." he replied, taking fighting stands. Claire did the same, taking the stand she learned from taking self-defense classes. The boys were surprised by her getting ready to fight and some of them felt bad, but they were paid well enough. Ray hasn't used much his ability to manipulate elements around his environment, because it took more energy, he didn't have many opportunities and the results varied drastically. But when he saw the fountain, he decided it was worth to use his manipulative abilities on the water coming out of the fountain. Focusing on the water he let it splash on the guys and the girls, who screamed in their high pitched voices. Claire laughed, losing her balance and leaving her stance.

Claire laughed. "Good one Ray." she said, catching herself and taking her stand again. The boys weren't prepared for someone being able to use magic. Ray only screwed around, but they were scared anyway, because they didn't know how much he truly could do, which was compared to the Dalaran wizards nothing.

Deciding to not being left out, Claire showed a little of what she could do, letting out a small psi-burst, throwing everyone, except Ray, down.

"Yo, be a little more careful. You almost knocked me down to." He said, shaking off the effect of the burst. The teens around them, stared up in horror. The two decided to leave before any of the patrolling guards noticed them. Having enough of the higher ups, they went back to the market and went to the opposite side of where they went before.

In a shop Ray noticed they also sold cloaks, which could pretty much come in handy. Much to his pleasure they had cloaks with multiple pockets on the inside. He bought two, although Claire didn't want one. Still Ray insisted and even paid, meaning they could come in handy in the future.

Claire in the meanwhile was more interested in a toy shop, the little child inside her coming out. She bought a chess field and some dolls for whatever reason.

They bought a bag and put all their stuff in, with Ray carrying it. Hopefully the Drones were allowed in the city, once the clothes were finished.

A little girl sold cats and it took Ray all his effort to stop Claire from buying one (or all). As they moved on they stumbled upon a big house with many kids playing around: an orphanage.

"Wow...even with the kids around, everything around this area feels depressing."

Claire nodded at the statement. "They remind me of Roxanne. Wonder how she's doing."

"Knowing her, she already spit on our 'graves' and took our PCs and cried for a week." Ray smiled sadly.

Claire and Ray walked closer, carefully dodging the kids running around, until a ball hit Ray on the head pretty hard. "Ow!"

"Score!" Claire cheered and laughed, while Ray rubbed his right ear. She picked up the ball and looked over the direction it came from. A boy looked down in shame. She walked over to him and gave him the ball, ruffling his hair. "Be careful next time. Kick harder."

"You're supposed to be on my side!" Ray complained, but smiled none the less. The kids around them laughed and one of the caretakers, a woman who looked up from her book smiled. Suddenly Claire snipped her fingers, ran over to her friend and whispered something into his ear.

He smiled and nodded taking out the rest of the money he had.

20 minutes later they were back with Ray breathing a little heavy, because of the full back he was carrying. The two placed themselves on the bench next to the woman overlooking the children.

"You two are back?" she asked.

"When the girl here gets an idea, it's hard to stop her." Ray half complained, half laughed as he took over his bag and opened it, revealing tons of candy. The woman's eyes widened and she laughed. "That's nice of you two."

Claire and Ray just smiled. "No problem. I just have a weak spot for children." The Queen of the Zerg explained. The woman called over the children, who cheered as they heard they'd get candy. Ray and Claire got popular within minutes.

The girls commented on Claire being pretty and Ray slipped up one time, leading him explaining to the boys the basics of soccer. What happened next was, since the orphanage had a free field in the backyard, he and Claire helped setting up goals. They were really simple, two thick wood beams a little into the ground and another one on the two, attached with some nails.

Ray had no choice, but to write down the general rules of football, so the people running the orphanage could use them.

Sometime later

"Sure takes 'em a while." Ray said, watching the kids playing. Claire closed her eyes and opened them 2 minutes later. "Still nothing, though Raynor is a little mad." she snickered. Ray nodded, watching the children.

"You two are not from here, right?" asked the woman. Claire nodded. "It's our first visit in the capital. And we already burned all our savings in one day." she laughed. The woman joined laughing, although she looked like she was ready to scold Claire.

The two played around with the kids until lunch time, when the children insisted (begged) the two to stay and eat with them. Giving in, the two at least helped preparing the tables with the staff around.

"You two are pretty fast." commented the woman who was watching the children. Ray shrugged. "We worked in a café part time until a few months ago. Our boss was...urrgh." he shuddered at the memory. Claire nodded in agreement, as she placed the final plates on the wooden tables.

Before lunch began, everyone prayed to the light. Next the kids stood up and lined up before one of the three big pots, filled with soup. It had all kind of vegetables and even potatoes inside. Claire and Ray didn't know the standard for orphanage, but at least today the kids had pretty healthy food.

Claire suppressed a comment, not being a fan of vegetables and started eating. They chatted happily with the kids who asked them where they exactly came from, which was a tricky question. In the end they told them they were wanderers, who took jobs where they were needed and just explored the world. The children beamed and the two had to tell stories about what they saw so far.

One of the caretakers cleared her throat and soon everyone resumed to eating. Claire and Ray silently thanked the woman and resumed to their own meal.

After helping making the dishes, the two headed out only to be begged by the children to play some more with them. Sighing they gave in and played football with them.

It was only 20 minutes later, a group of nights with Rose and Raynor in the middle arrived as the ball flew a bit away, landing in front of them.

One of the kids ran to pick it up and as the boy looked up he gasped and dropped the ball as he saw Rose. The other kids were watching a little away. Claire, already having sensed the queen, came out with Ray.

"I guess it's time." Ray said.

"My queen" Rose began, bowing slightly in front of Claire "those knights are supposed to escort us to King Terenas, who's asking for an audience with you."

"Aww, sucks. Oh well, I guess we can play later, right?" she ruffled the boy's hair. Her eyes started to glow, making the guards drawing their weapons. All she did was letting the ball fly into the boy's arms, who caught it, looking up with big eyes.

Claire turned around and waved her hand. "See you!"

"Always play fair!" Ray added.

Afterwards the group left, two normal Zerglings, two Hydras and Roaches and Shotgun joining them.

"What did you do here?" Raynor hissed at the two.

"Shopping and I had to teach the kids at the orphanage how to play football." Ray answered. "Long story."

"Next time we should play rugby."

"Claire, shut up. One broken rib is enough for me."

"Wimp."

The group drew quite the attention and one of the citizens even threw garbage at them, only to be caught telepathically by Rose and thrown back. It took them a little while to get to the castle itself. Having no time for sightseeing, the group immediately went inside, from the lobby into a hallway, and soon they found themselves in the throne room of what you see in the first cutscene of the human campaign in Warcraft 3.

Terenas looked ready to collapse any second, the age totally getting to him. Around in the balconies Claire saw in each of them a man standing, probably ambassadors of the different human kingdoms. One of them was an elf and another one a dwarf. The elf and another human had a different aura around them, indicating they were capable of using magic.

Behind Terena's throne stood Uther and Morlune. Claire of course following the rules of society, crossed both arms around her head and grinned at each of the man present, letting her eyes glow for a few seconds she was doing this.

Ray, walking next to her swung his pipe over his shoulder and let it down again, only to repeat the process. He was counting the guards, considering how many might be in this castle and how many guards in total they had to fight in case they had to at all.

Raynor was forced in being an observant in this one, standing back with Rose and Shotgun. From what he overheard reinforcements could be here in a day, when they came with the Overlords and Rose of course had prepared something for the worst case scenario.

_We're finished. _Ray thought to himself, as he saw Claire grinning like a madwoman. He was only there to keep her at bay, in case she totally overdid it again.

Zeratul was here too, but neither Claire nor Ray were sure what he would do in case of an emergency.

"So, you're the young Claire. I have heard quite a lot about you." Terenas started. He had more strength in his voice, than she expected, but it put only oil into her excitement.

"Didn't know, you're a fan of gossip. And for someone who's almost a century old, you're holding up good old dude."

"Seriously?" Ray deadpanned and looked at Claire. "We're finished." he muttered.

Terenas' eyes lit up and he even chuckled. "I see, I see. Morlune was right, you have quite the sharp tongue."

"If you want me to speak more formal, forget it. Ain't my style and I don't care if it makes me look like I'm not the actual leader. Let's get straight to the point, 'kay? The name's Claire Nights and I'm sure you're wondering, but I'm not planning on invading your territory or taking over the world or something."

There were murmurs around in the gallery. Terenas' gaze was focused on Claire. "Hmm. I am Terenas, ruler of Lordaeron. No one accused you of the things you just said. However, even you cannot ignore the fact your Zerg look rather...devious."

"Meh, psychological war. It works and that's it." Claire shrugged. The ambassadors got more and more agitated as to how this girl was behaving in front of all of them.

"There are some things we wish to make clear today, but first of all, let me thank you for helping my people against the undead."

"No prop, gramps."

SILENCE.

Ray facepalmed and glanced over to his friend with a deadpan expression on his face. A faint snicker could be heard and it was Terenas of all people who was laughing.

"Hehehe, it's truly refreshing, Morlune was true to his words." Claire simply shrugged, while the rest was dumbfounded at the King's reaction. "Is there anything else or is it someone else's turn?" she asked, sounding a little bored.

"Patience my dear."

_You're asking the wrong person. _Ray suppressed to say it out loud.

"As of now, no one really knows your true motives. We can speculate all we want and I know some might disagree with me, but I want to hear from you: What are your intensions?" Terenas asked.

Claire remained silent for a minute and considered the question. "I already told you what I'm NOT planning." She began. "As to what I actually plan: the safety of my swarm has top priority. I want to get rid of the undead, but I don't have the numbers to invade Northrend just yet. The rest is none of your business, as I can't really trust you with the important stuff."

...

...

"What's more important, than to get rid of the undead?" Ray asked.

"Kerrigan?"

"Got your point."

Looking around to the humans, she saw no one really believed her.

"I still have my doubts, YOU are actually the one leading those creatures, those Zerg." said one of the ambassadors in a cool tone.

_Wow, no one snarling at her so far. _Ray thought.

"There's always a way to proof it, you know." Claire grinned.

"WAIT! Claire, forget it! I know what you're planning and I say, let's forget these guys and go back. This is a joke anyways. We knew no one was gonna belief you from the start, they knew and you still got this stupid invitation."

"Come on, what could possibly go wrong?"

"The last time you said that, I almost got my ass electrocuted, not to mention you almost broke your neck."

She scratched the back of her head sheepishly, letting the imaginations of those around running wild. "I'm still doing it, IF you allow me to show you my proof." she grinned at Terenas. Everyone got a bad wipe from that grin.

"Very well." Terenas said. The other allies were shocked and began to protest. Claire pumped her fist into the air and Ray bent over sweating bullets.

"You're officially nuts bro." he said to Terenas, silencing the rest of pure shock. "You're SO gonna regret this."

"Alrighty. We need to go a little outside, so I can proof that I'm really the leader of the swarm."

"Why not here inside?" asked the dalaran guy, you could identify him on his rope. "You'll see soon enough." Claire winked.

Everyone headed outside. Ray whispered to Rose, who nodded in agreement and took precautions. The Roaches buried underground started moving.

The group followed Claire outside in the garden, which was freaking huge. Plenty of beautiful flowers were set in special patterns, trees and still there was a lot of space covered only by grass.

"You should open this place as tourist attraction." Ray said to Terenas. "You could make a hell lotta money with that. If you include tours through your own castle, you can raise the prize. There's plenty of space for sport events too."

"Since when are you interested in sport?" Claire chuckled.

Claire walked into the middle of the biggest grass field and took a deep breath. Next she put both hands on the ground and let a lot of bio energy flowing through her body. The man of Dalaran suddenly tensed up as he felt the sudden burst of energy going through the girl's body.

Suddenly a violet pot came out of her hands and landed on the ground. The pot was growing pretty fast, until it was as wide as a Lair. The next step would take longer, around twelve hours for the Lair to be completed, but Claire already got her point across.

"Wh-what is this?!" Terenas asked, while the rest was still collecting themselves. Ray facepalmed. "She actually did it."

"Did what?" asked the dwarf. Ray faced him, sweating bullets. "This will become a Lair in 12 hours. Zerg buildings are alive and a Lair is something from where new Zerg are born. The Lair itself was born from Claire. Now you get it? Claire is their queen, because all Zerg are born FROM her. She's their freaking mother, grandmother, whatever way you put it!"


	6. Chapter 6

_**6) Queen of the Martians. Wait, you really couldn't come up with a better pun?**_

**A/N: No, I really couldn't.**

**This chapter will be 2/3 focused on Ray. Some days will be skipped, but we'll come to them next chapter. Don't worry, I haven't forgotten Zeratul. He'll get a bigger role next chapter.**

**New unit: U-Lings (from German U-Boot, meaning sub-marine)**

**Requirements: Spawning Pool (Hatchery near water would be useful)**

**Upgrade: Torpedo Attack; Sacrifices the Ling to do tons of damage to a chosen target. Requires baneling nest.**

**Looks: Piranha like creature with very sharp teeth, however use small acid bombs coming out of their eyes. Only strong in groups, good scouts.**

_Although the Zerg queen Rose used Murloc strains at the beginning, she soon noticed the only thing she would get out of them were infested Murlocs. In the end she only could use their lungs, since they work in- and outside the water. In the end she found some piranhas the Murlocs were hunting and used them as the basic design. Seeing as teeth wouldn't really work underwater, she decided to give her creation a ranged attack. Due to the small size (the one of a Zergling) the attack doesn't really do a lot of damage. You need an entire swarm for a proper fight or use their special ability. Since U-Lings can breathe in and outside water, transportation over land or air is not a problem._

**Capital of Lordaeron; Terenas' castle**

"I need a morning star." Ray said, after he hit Claire multiple times over the head, not caring how many people were watching. He went over to the dwarf ambassador. "Hey, how much cost a good morning star made by you guys? I think I might need one." he said pointing with his thump towards Claire, who acted like nothing happened and was humming a lullaby to the still to be born lair. "And I have to endure that every day." he finished facepalming.

It was at that time the dwarf started laughing out loud. Ray completely forgot, dwarfs mostly say what they got in their head out loud. Etiquette, well they had some, but yeah.

"I like your attitude lad." The dwarf smacked Ray's shoulder and had a hard time recovering. The way the rest was looking at them, Ray wished he'd have stayed in the Overlord.

"I should have called sick..."

Terenas eventually faked a cough in order to get everyone's attention to him. He failed with Claire. "Don't ask her to remove it." Ray stopped Terenas before he could even start. "It would be like asking a mother to kill her unborn child. And belief me, no matter how the Zerg look to _us_, for _her_, their all her children. So watch it, I can't stop her when she's mad."

Maybe what he said could be taken as an offense in the one or other way, Ray wasn't sure, but he warned them. Now Terenas was in a little bit of a tight spot. If he would 'remove' the Lair himself or order his men, Claire would kill them. She was crazy enough to do so. The other ambassadors kept their quite for the time being and mostly let Terenas handles the situation. Claire was a dangerous mixture of being crazy and having power.

Terenas was once again interrupted as an alarm came out of Ray's laptop. At the same time Rose closed her eyes, looking through one of the Overlords. It wasn't a red alert, else the lambs would be blinking in that color, it was yellow.

"What's going on?" Terenas asked.

"Another one?"

"My queen, a ship crash-landed near our Hive-Cluster." Rose informed her and the rest.

"A ship, crash-landing?" one of the ambassadors asked.

"Again? What we're getting even more company?" Claire grinned. Rose shook her head. "The ship is abandoned. It looked like no one was inside from the beginning."

"Maybe from the Castanar lab. Who knows what's going to come down here from there?" Ray mused. Again Rose shook her head. "The ship is a Medivac. Plus it has the symbol of Raynor's Raiders on the side."

"What?!" Everyone turned to Raynor who approached the queen. "We found a strange object inside we couldn't identify, along with a few crates. The ship is beyond repair, but everything it had loaded is in good condition."

"I need to go there, now." Raynor declared. He needed to find out why one of his ships just landed on Azeroth and what exactly was loaded inside. Meanwhile Terenas silently motioned Morloune to come and tell the king what he knew. But the only two things he knew were that the man's name was Raynor and that Claire once called him commander.

XXX

If Ray was glad for something, then it was that Claire sent him away with Raynor, although the boy didn't have to listen to the girl. They left the city at rather fast pace, they almost ran.

Raynor looked back to the castle at one point. "She's gonna screw up, won't she?" the rebel leader asked.

"The only reason she wanted me away, is 'cause now she can go all out on these guys. The Lair was simply a warm up."

At the gates Raynor literally shoved a document in front of the guard's nose, so they could pass as fast as possible. Ray saw a new side of Raynor, but then again, aside from the books and games, personally he didn't really know the man. And in his life, he'd never seen someone being so worried and he actually never expected to meet anyone like that.

After they finally got through the large crowd of people, they arrived at the area where all the Zerg were resting (aside from the roaches, still buried underneath the palace). A nearby Overlord came down. Raynor still hesitated entering the balloon like Zerg.

Before any of the two could enter however, Claire called the two on their walkie-talkies. Raynor gave them two, because first he wasn't linked, second in case they needed some other means of communication.

"What's up Claire? Got the dude's insane already?" Ray snickered.

"I'm working on it. Anyways, open up your laptop. We got a prob."

Ray shrugged and did as she told him. "Holy shit!"

"Don't you mean unholy?" Claire asked. "Can you come back? Those guys won't belief a word I say."

"Figures." Ray said, closing his laptop. "Are you going to be okay?" Raynor asked. "That at least explains how Arthas could overrun the capital. Anyways, don't worry about us. You check out whatever you need to check. We'll deal with this."

Raynor nodded and walked into the Overlord, flying away. Ray shook his head. "We've been only in a couple of battles and caused this already. I hope the U-Lings are ready."

XXX

None of the Dalaran wizards ever saw such fine magic at work. Sure real time observation wasn't something unknown to them, but it was just how the picture stayed clear and the amount of things you could observe with that artifact, it was just astonishing.

Not so astonishing was the fact, that the prince was being chased by a fleet of undead. From the 5 ships Arthas took, only two remained. From what they could see Arthas was three days ahead of the fleet, chasing him. What they didn't know, it was all a set up. Arthas would come, dethrone Terenas and then the rest of his army would come and cause chaos AND increase the army. 8 ships were hardly enough to bring down Lordaeron, but in Lordaeron lived enough people for the army.

"Our own fleet will never make it in time to stop them." Uther said.

"Bah! My brothers would just blow 'em up, but our flyers would have not the ammo to deal with their flyers and that shipwrecks!" the dwarf in the group said.

_In other words, you'd be outnumbered. _Claire thought to herself. _Arthas will be here in a week. Damn, gimme more time man! My forces are only strong enough to deal with one of the two groups. I can either save Terenas and this city or all the people who'd be turned into undead, once the rest of the ship come. And from the sound of it, none of the other Alliance fractions could make it in time._

Rose walked closer to Ray and whispered something in his ear. He nodded. Claire smiled. So the new units were ready.

_You knew, my queen?_

_I couldn't help but listen. Why don't we take them on a field test?_

"Hey Ray, take a strike force and teach 'em how to swim."

"Are you nuts?! You mean I should lead that operation!?"

Claire just smiled and crossed her arms. "Well I didn't study the D-Day like my life depended on it. Besides, you're known as the bunker master."

"Urrgh, I so hate you."

Ray had a rather unorthodox tactic in every strategy game. He built up defenses, defenses and more defenses, so nothing came into his base. He always gave the enemy map control, because he was way too careful for his own good. The thing was he won half of the games, especially when he played Terran. He just held out with the limited resources he had, until the other player either gave up because of boredom or the other player had no more minerals, due to not being able to crack the defense.

Ray also mostly sent out only a few units to ambush certain parts of enemy bases. He always got out better with fewer units.

So Claire thought he was perfectly suited for the mission. He wasn't the best at micro, but he had _days_ to think of where to place the defensive structures and at the same time he could lead the U-Lings to sink the enemy ships.

"And what will YOU do?" Ray asked. Claire put her fist into her palm. "Black Rock 'n' Roll buddy."

XXX

Ray tried to argue some more, but after calling Claire a manipulative bitch he left.

"Sorry guys, but that Orcs are really up for some ass kicking. I'll come back another time." The thing was, a bunch of Orcs from the Black Rock Clan had taken a significant interest in Claire's Zerg and before they somehow managed to sneak through all defenses, she decided she'd take care of them. Aside from that, she was uncomfortable being that far away from home. The Liar in the castle was still there and it would stay there if Terenas wanted to keep his city one piece. Or maybe his cute little daughter would soon become a part of the swarm.

Zeratul still lingered around and she always kept an eye on him.

When they were out of the city, Ray had already taken a third of the remaining troops and was flying off in the distance.

"Are you sure he will succeed my queen?" Rose asked.

"He's lacking confidence. A mission like that should get some confidence into him."

She spaced off, watching through one of her Overlords, seeing the Orcs building up their base. It was on the other end of the forest the Cluster was in. A bunch of golems owned that part of the woods and Claire mostly left them alone. This would soon change.

"Come on guys." she motioned Rose and Shotgun to follow into the Overlord, to discuss the tactic they would be using against the Orcs, now that they were a little short on troops. Just running in didn't sound too good or did it?

XXX

**Half a day later; the coast; approximated disembark point of the undead**

"Exactly what I don't need! A clear coast!" Ray let out his frustration. Once again, he was connected with the swarm, giving him the creeps, but also quick thinking ability. He preferred it without those two things.

Rose's creation would arrive the next day. Most of the Overlords were already heading back to base, where they would be a save, in case the undead did make it to land. To make matters worse, they spotted more ships coming down from Northrend. One of the Overlords actually made it 'till that place, where he was shot down. Before that happened, he had sent some pictures to the rest. Undead freaking everywhere!

"If they get a foothold here, we're finished. We could kill everyone in Lordaeron, the undead would just come per ship and overrun the rest still. Urrgh, why does it feel like the fate of this freaking continent lies in my hands right now?"

He wished at least Shotgun would be here to support him. The two got along pretty well and Shotgun was a beast, when it came to ambushes.

"Let's see...every Zerg can swim, but the Zerglings won't do much in water, I need the U-Lings. The only way I can use them is as Banelings. The Hydras, I can use to get rid of the flyers. Roaches will sink the ships in seconds, but they can't dive for long."

The base was getting set up, but for now all he could do was wait. The Overlords reminded him, that he needed to scout the area. While some patrols were set up, he himself looked around the area. Nope, no cliffs around here that could help him. A small fisher village. Maybe they should evacuate. But who would listen to him?

He didn't like the Lair being placed that near on the water. The canons of the ships could easily hit the thing. One of the Overlords spotted a bunch of villagers approaching. No soldiers or anything, for that the village was way too small. Farmers, fishers equipped with all kind of junks. The leader at least had a sword.

Ray closed his laptop and walked towards them, placing himself on a rock and waited. The leader had dark skin, wore what seemed an old armor, already had grey hair and had a grim expression on his face. Ray noticed there was one female with them. She was slightly bigger than the rest of the men and wore a cloak, covering her entire body.

"Hold back guys. We ain't in war with my kind yet."

Ray jumped down from the rock and approached the guys, stretching him. There were a few roaches underground, but that were his entire escort. Behind him, the unfinished Lair and a few Overlords could be seen.

_I must be looking totally out of place._

"Sup' guys!" he casually more or less waved his hand, still stretching. It looked a little awkward. "Can I help you guys?" he asked. "Whoa!" The leader pointed the sword at Ray's throat, his expression being even grimmer than before.

"I tell you how you can help us. You stand still and tell your demons to go back to the hellhole you came from or I'll kill you right now."

"*gulp* That's why I wanted to have Shotgun with me, uhh guys? Help?"

The Roaches got out, surprising everyone and pulling everyone to the ground, except the woman, who jumped back and took out a bow, that she kept hidden. It didn't look like any ordinary bow and it certainly didn't look like it was human made.

Now it was the woman pointing that bow at Ray and in return the Roaches were ready to melt the humans in a sea of acid.

_Great~_

"I'm so going to kill Claire..." he deadpanned and removed the sweat coming down his forehead. He took a second look at the bow the woman was using. Now he got where he'd seen it again: on various pictures and fan-art or at least similar bows.

"You're a night elf." _It's so obvious! Her eyes! They're glowing! How did I miss that?_

The night elf woman removed her cape, showing her face. She had violet skin, dark green hair and (I don't know how to describe the tattoo). Ray didn't know whether she used purple lipstick or if her lips were natural. Her face was hard, yet soft at the same time. She actually looked like she didn't have her morning coffee.

_Fail? She looks like she's gonna collapse any second._

_..._

_Oh right, I need to say something. Why can't Claire be here? I hate it, when I'm in charge!_

"Alright guys...let's make some things clear here."

_Deep breaths calm down._

"First we're not here to kill you guys or anything. There's an undead fleet heading this way, arriving in about one week and a half. Second, my buddies around here are Zerg. There's a difference between them and demons. Third, leave us alone and we'll leave you alone, got it?

Let's go guys."

Still looking at the direction of the humans and the night elf, the Roaches left slowly but steadily. The woman lowered her bow and Ray didn't even try to hide his relieved sigh. With the last two Roaches he left towards the base, making a mental note not to go near the village. As if being the commander of those Zerg here wasn't enough pressure.

It was almost nighttime, so Ray decided to settle down for the day. He got out his new cloak and used it as a blanket, while using a Zergling as a pillow.

XXX

**Claire's Hive**

Claire smiled to herself, as she felt everyone of the swarm wishing her a good night. In exchange, Claire took her time to wish everyone good night, although there were quite a lot of children to wish goodnight. At least she could take the time to deepen the bond she had with everyone. One thing was uncommon today. One individual decided to neglect her and was blocking her out on purpose. It took her a minute to realize it was Ray. And instead of leaving him alone, she broke through his defenses.

_Claire...!_ He growled.

She giggled inside his head.

_Get out and let me sleep!_

_Not gonna happen anytime soon. And come on, I just wanted to say goodnight._

_Get the fuck OUT OF MY HEAD!_

She flinched as her head felt like he really hit her over. In response she pushed him to the end of his mind and kept him restrained.

_The hell are you doing?!_

_I'm worried about you suckerhead!_

_Worried? Then why did you send me out on my own?! And get the freaking hell out of my head!_

Instead of releasing him, she even increased the pressure and was dangerously close to getting into the one part of his mind, Ray kept all his secrets hidden.

_What are you up to?_

_..._

She pulled him closer.

_You're not alone. Sleep well._

Before the connection totally broke off, she heard: _But I wanna be alone._

"I'll never understand him." she sighed. She looked over to the direction the Medivac landed. Inside had been some kind of satellite, sending of a signal and messing up a little with the connection of the Zerg, so they had to shut down the thing. With it was delivered an entire power suit, a gauss canon, a lot of clips, military rations and a private message from the Raiders to Raynor. They haven't given him up and will deliver more and more stuff through the black hole, until they manage to find a way to get through themselves.

It actually made her worried. She sure hoped the Raiders would take their time or else, her swarm would have a great decrease in numbers soon. She couldn't fight the Raiders. First thing they would think was the Zerg have taken Raynor hostage.

She shuddered at the thought a nuke striking down on the Hive.

XXX

**Haven; Doc Hanson's Lab; Lab number 2**

"And?" Horner asked.

"We lost contact just after it entered the black hole. But, hehe, at least it didn't got ripped apart by the gravity of the hole." Stetman reported.

Matt sighed. He guessed miracles took their time. "It is a start. Keep up the good work." he put a hand on the nerd's shoulder. "Keep me updated."

Matt left the Lab. It was dangerous to stay at one place for so long, even if Haven is near the Protoss territory. As soon as the Hyperion was patched up, they'd at least fly in the orbit again.

"S-sir?" One of the communication officers approached him, looking like he'd seen the ghost of the commander.

"T-there's s-s-s-s-someone who wants t-t-to t-talk to you."

"The Protoss?" the captain of the Hyperion asked. Some of them are intimidating. It would explain the man's behavior.

"N-no. Y-y-you b-b-better s-see for yourself." the man motioned to the Hyperion. "Y-your private communicator."

?

Was it Mira? No, everyone on the Hyperion knew her. And she wasn't really intimidating.

So Matt walked into his private quarters and activated the little computer. The signal took a while to stabilize.

_Must be pretty far away from Haven. Shakuras?_

XXX

**Ray's base; the next day**

The good thing about sleeping in a house was the time the sun rises, you don't notice it. It was summer in Lordaeron, meaning the sun got up really early.

"Fuck it. I never even got up that early for school." Seeing as sleeping would be a little too impossible for the time being, Ray got up and ate some creep and fruits some of the Zerg brought him.

"Thanks guys. Sorry for the trouble." A few Lings made it comfortable for Ray, by acting as if they were pillows. He didn't get how none of them complained, about being stuck babysitting him AND getting orders from him. HIM of all people.

First, he was Terran player. Second, he sucked with Zerg. Third, he hesitated a lot, when he was actually in charge, no matter what. He had no problem playing the second banana, giving advice or being the voice of reasoning as long as the last decision wasn't his word.

Instead of shaking their heads, the Zerg, especially the Overlords, tried to encourage him. He didn't get those fellas.

Looking at the watch, he saw it was four in the morning. He needed some serious shut eye or else the Zerg around him would fall asleep as well. Then again, he was on edge because the undead didn't sleep.

The one drone that hadn't turn into a building yet, brought Ray a sack full of creep. Wondering what this was, Ray munched it all down and immediately felt like he drank 17 cups of coffee. (A cookie to all who get the reference to a certain video game series).

"Thanks girl. Now let's get going!"

His laptop showed everything with transparent squares. "Alright, we need a basic defense of both crawler types." He put spine and spore crawlers next to each other on the beach. "U-Lings will patrol the area, the village too! We surly will have to defend that. Banelings in front and behind the defensive line. As for the ships, we'll use a tactic the Germans used in the second world war, call Wolfsrudel. Wolf packs translated. It works like this: the lings will position themselves between the ships and when they passed half through, well blub, blub, blub. We also need some reinforcements, especially Hydras for the Gargoyles."

Ray gulped as he saw the number that was shown on screen for the plan he set up. He ALWAYS lacked resources and this time there was no way for him to get any! There aren't exactly many trees around.

Gulping, he mentally sent the information to Claire, who was preparing her own fight. Surly she could afford him leaving that amount, right? The thing was, they didn't have even half of what he needed. Because Claire had been busy rebuilding and increasing their numbers.

_We'll split up. But I still need the greater part. Have a feeling something big is going to happen and I'll need it. But I got something for you!_

Using her own bio energy (and how the hell did it get send all the way to his base?) a larvae transformed into a slowly bigger getting cocoon.

"A queen? Oh well, why not? Alright guys! Let's see how far we can get! Look for anything that might increase our own energy supplies!"

_Urrgh, too early in the morning to shout. My ears..._

Ray wasn't even in the mood of playing video games or starting Warcraft 3 to refresh some of his memories according to the storyline. All he did the first three hour of the day was falling asleep every so often, until he went to a near river and splashed some water on his face.

"Never knew building up a base can be THAT boring...arrgh, I need bunkers."

_I need siegetanks, I need marines! Banshees would just be perfect for this mission! Cloak and BAM! Greet Spongebob from me!_

_Mutalisks! I need Muties! With them, I wouldn't have to fear the Gargoyles! I wouldn't need to set up this base! I only need the U-Lings and the Muties and that's it!_

Snapping out of his own thoughts, Ray got back to the cluster at least pretending he was busy. Yeah, watching some blobs getting bigger and bigger, until something comes out. Very interesting.

Ray let fully the Overlords decide which unit to spawn next. Even Claire did this most of the time. And unlike Ray, she was a Zerg, meaning she thought in multiple ways at the same time and nobody of course notices this.

Ray made a mental note NEVER EVER getting connected again until it was REALLY necessary. He was going insane, he could feel it. He knew the advantages of being connected, but it just freaked him out! Hearing voices, getting info he was used to see on a screen. How could Claire NOT go insane?! Maybe he didn't bring enough Overlords with him. Couldn't be it, he was far under the supply limit.

Rubbing his temples he walked off to the cocoon of the queen. It was half underwater. "That's going to be a wet birth. That just sounded so wrong in so many ways."

Before the flood put him underwater, he walked a little higher up.

"Tch, got nine days. If they don't arrive on this beach, this was all for nothing." He looked over to the direction of the village. "Why's a nightelf here in the Eastern Kingdoms? They shouldn't even know what humans are." he mused. "The thing is, I can't just go there and ask. They're going to kill me on sight."

It was then it happened. Another headache hit him, meaning one of the Zerg had a message for him.

_It better be important._

He lowered his barriers and let the Overlord talk. _My Lord, the night elf woman from the previous day wishes an audience to you._

_My Lord? Audience? Dude I'm not even a Zerg._

He walked towards the other end of the creep area, which didn't have any defenses. He couldn't afford the bio energy. Claire didn't really give him much.

The woman wasn't wearing the cloak anymore. Instead she had some kind of green armor, revealing a bit much of her skin. Now seriously Blizzard and every other company who pulls that off: why having extraordinary armor, when there're only that many parts covered, that you won't get in jail for molestation? Kind of pointless, don't you agree?

She also wore a green cape. All in all, it looked pretty expensive what she was wearing.

_I think I've seen her before._

_Character creation, perhaps My Lord?_

_Stop calling me a Lord. And yeah, most likely. They do look the same after some time._

"Can I help you? I'm not going to be your practice dummy, just you know." His eyes wandered to the bow attached to her back. The woman chuckled slightly. She still looked like half of her brain was shut down. Was it that way with every night elf? And why did Ray get an uneasy feeling just thinking about that Lady?

Said Lady chuckled and a smile crept onto her face. "Not today little one, not today."

_Well THAT'S reassuring._

"No, I'm here because something you said yesterday caught my interest. You said a fleet of the undead is coming to this very coast. Is this the truth?" she asked.

"Umm...yes?"

"Then I will help you."

"W-wut? Just like that?" Ray asked. She seemed honest and nuts. Totally nuts. She was actually staring off space, looking up to the side, following the trail of a cloud.

"Umm, are you alright?" he asked.

"Celindra."

"Huh?"

"That's my name. Celindra. And yours?" she asked. (Again thanks WoW name generator)

_Back to reality in 0.5 seconds. Better keep an eye on her._

"Ray Silvers."

XXX

**Claire's Hive**

Raynor double checked his weapon. This was completely an overkill they were throwing off. The Orcs wouldn't know what him them. Not only where they outnumbered, but they hardly had any means of fighting back. Sure they had a few Warlocks, but not enough to really fight back.

The armor Raynor was wearing was a standard blue one, a CMC 300. He could just walk in and shoot them all with that thing on. Okay, he didn't know what magic would do to the armor, but he could take out most of them, he was sure of that.

Claire especially told them all to leave the bodies intact for bio energy and she was also interested in a special strength upgrade only Orcs had.

And again he questioned himself why exactly he was helping the Zerg. Especially this mission he could just sit out and watch. Still, he went down the woods to the Orc camp, where a Blademaster was snarling orders. The first camp of a few they would have to take out.

Raynor was a bit farer away and a complete different location, since with that armor he wasn't exactly sneaky or anything. But those Orcs were idiots. They didn't even notice the Hydralisks had taken out the patrols.

Seeing as she clearly overestimated the Orcs, Claire gave the order to get rid of those idiots who prayed to demons. Claire had made it clear to the rebel leader that those guys were not worth negotiating, since they were ready to sacrifice others to call up demons.

The Orcs were taken off guard and half of them got slaughtered before they even took their weapons. The blade master was pretty fast to react and shouted something in his own language. Next four of him appeared all of the sudden. Raynor just shot them all and that was it for their leader. Raynor felt more and more uncomfortable, until he just dropped his weapon until the fights died down. They won, easy win. The Warlocks had no time to really react. Their spells didn't do much to the Zerg. A few felt uncomfortable, but the effects would wear of eventually.

"Commander?" It was Rose, who came up from behind and put a hand on his shoulder. He visibly flinched, but didn't move, just kept looking at the queen from behind his closed visor.

"Perhaps you should not come with us to the remaining camps?" she suggested.

"I'm fine."

"You're clearly not. I may not be able to feel pity for my enemies, but I understand your feelings."

"Hah, you do?"

Rose crossed her arms and her face hardened. "I am NOT the queen of blades. Mother taught us about how important feelings are."

...

"Wohoo! Heads up guys, we got a few flyers there!"

Claire's announcement got them both out of their conversation and they looked up. Nothing the Hydras couldn't handle. As they prepared to leave the area, there was like a REALLY loud growl.

Raynor couldn't belief his eyes, when he saw a real red dragon heading towards their position. Now that thing could become a problem. The dragon was almost there and Raynor was ready to shoot, when Claire jumped in front of him.

"Don't shoot the dragon! Only the rider!"

"What?!"

"Trust me!" she shouted and already prepared her psi bombs in her hands. "This won't be easy." she mumbled.

"It really won't." Raynor muttered, aiming at the rider or at least trying. The Lings and Roaches already evacuated the area. The Hydras started shooting their poisoned spines, hitting the dragon, not the rider. The poor creature screamed in pain, as the poison started to damage its system.

It burned down the first line of riders. Rose tried to keep the fire under control by using her abilities. She created psi barriers in which the oxygen ran out pretty fast, thus stopping the fires. Still, Claire had taken a lot of Hydras with her and Raynor's bullets were doing their job rather too well.

It's always when you bring one big unit into a fight with a lot of small units. The dragon took out a good amount of Hydras, before hitting the ground. Finally the thing wasn't moving too much, so Raynor took the rider out with a single shot.

"Rose, over here!"

The dragon was still alive, but he or she was bleeding really badly. Claire ignored the snarls of creature, as she got closer to it, inspecting his wounds.

"The angrier you get, the faster the poison is going to finish you, so be a good patient and shut de fuck up!"

The dragon seemed to be a little taken aback or maybe he was too weak to even growl, whatever was the case, he was silent, which was a bad sign. "Good thing you're from the red swarm or else you probably would have died already. Rose, get on with it already."

The queen complied and put both hands on the nearest wounds, injecting the liquid which increased the healing rate drastically. It also got rid of the poison. She of course couldn't completely heal the poor leviathan, but at least he was out of critical condition. It was really nasty getting the bullets out of the body. Imagine a lot of blood and other liquid coming out of the injuries, in order to get everything out.

"I'm sorry my queen, but this is all I can do." Claire smiled and put a hand on the queen's shoulder. "It's okay. You did your best." She turned towards the dragon, who was watching the strange creatures around him.

"Are there more of you around? I mean in this area. I know there're more enslaved, but we can't help them right now."

The dragon looked down at Claire, clearly not knowing what to think of all this, especially the girl down there next to him.

"Hey, I know this is confusing and all, but if we're going to help out, I need to know if there're more dragons around."

The dragon in front of her showed two claws.

"Two to go. Alright, I'll leave some of my children to protect you, while you're resting. You can leave whenever you feel like you're ready.

Hey Jim! Didn't your boys delivered a sniper to you? I'm pretty sure I saw one."

XXX

**Ray's base**

While Claire, Raynor, Rose and Shotgun were dealing with the Orcs, Ray meanwhile finally got the U-Lings delivered.

"Rose clearly stole them from Red Alert 3. The Yari-Mini-Submarines." he muttered to himself, while seeing the new units for the first time. He got a little swarm of ten, which was not really enough to sink the second group. And again his plans were blown up to pieces.

He hoped he could get rid of the second undead group coming and then attack the first group with the U-Lings he created right here, right now, but as he saw the speed of them he knew it wouldn't work. Plus as he sent them a little farther away scouting the area, they got caught up in a fight with sharks and large fish he'd never seen before. He wiped the sweat of his face and started thinking, a terrible thing to do, when your brain needs to handle the voices of the swarm.

Deciding he needed a break, he completely cut himself off the swarm, leaving only a tiny bit of the flow of the thoughts or simply the flow there, so he didn't need a queen again to help him.

His brain seemed to do some stretching exercise or at least it felt that way after he almost cut off the connection. And then followed the familiar dizziness and he was shut down for ten minutes.

"Are you okay?" Celindra asked him, as he slowly started to act normal again.

"Urrgh, those guys use mind to mind communication. I just broke up contact, 'cause my brain is gonna explode if I keep it up any longer. I'm not really one of them, you see."

"How come you control those...Zerg." she asked.

"I don't. It's a long story and I'll give you the short version for now, okay?"

The night elf archer nodded, for once seeming to pay full attention. "Well, belief it or not, my friend Claire and I got hit by lightning and next thing we know, we're in the woods. After some time we find out she can control the Zerg here. She can create those buildings" *pointing at the Lair* "by just putting her hands on the ground and releasing bio-energy. That thing gives birth to the rest of the units. Slowly the swarm is growing and without them, we'd be dead already. A few weeks ago, we found the first undead and just a day ago, one of the Overlords spotted an entire little fleet heading this way. We got nine days left to prepare for their arrival, but I'm lacking resources. You don't come to have seen blue crystals called minerals or green fog, called vespene gas?"

Celindra's confused face was answer enough. "So tell me, what's a nightelf like you doing here? Pretty far away from home, wouldn't you agree?"

Celindra smiled, sending a cold chill down Ray's spine.

"I'm not good at navigating. So I asked a cloud to help me. But she didn't know the way either."

Ray fell down, anime style.

"You're either more nuts than Claire and I together or you're not telling the truth. I go for both."

Again that smile, it was the same Claire puts on when she's planning something.

_Seriously, I HAVE seen that girl before. Think Ray, think. If you remember her, then she's probably pretty high in the nightelf hierarchy. Damn, I never read anything about where nightelves were the main characters._

Getting himself together, Ray looked around. Only a few spine crawlers were standing so far and here and there a spore crawler. The patrols came back with nothing. "Really, not even Murlocs are living around the area?"

The Lings shook their heads and Ray rubbed his forehead with two fingers, eyes closed. "Alright, let's just continue our work and see how far we come. No use complaining about our situation. We should be able to sink a bunch of ships, right?"

The huntress watched the happenings around her, here and there asking a question, but mostly really only observed.

Finally something interesting happened, when the queen was about to be born. The cocoon was still half in the water. Looked like either that caused some kind of mutation or Claire had her hands into this, whatever the case was, this queen was a surprise even for Ray.

When the queen hatched, first two arms came out of the cocoon. So far so normal. Wait are scales normal? I don't just mind the queen, but Zerg in particular. As the queen broke free from her cocoon, you could see more and more details and this was definitely something else.

The most normal thing about the queen was probably her color, which was a mixture of green of blue, looking like the water in the Caribbean. The best way to describe the rest was she looked like a Naga. She didn't have fins or anything, but gills on her neck. Breathing above water didn't seem to be a problem. Her Zerg dreadlocks were longer than Rose's and she lacked the wings. However, when her tail showed up from the water, you could see it was not only made to swim, but to stick it into enemies, with poison dripping out of the thing. If one paid closer attention, you could see the same poison dripping out of the ends of her dreadlocks.

_Welcome Sil._

_My queen._

"Now that is an...unexpected turn of events...someone shoot me please."

The nightelf didn't get what was wrong, but didn't ask either way. The newly born Sil got on land with her snake like body. Ray never thought he'd see something that looked like a lizard and an insect at the same time.

"I'm ready Ray." she told him.

"Good...to know." the boy figured he needed to get out of his shock. He wondered what kind of abilities Sil had in stock. "Too bad, there's not much we can do right now." he sighed.

XXX

Over the days, Ray explained in more and more detail about the Zerg and why he had been so baffled when he first saw Sil. Said queen had a completely different personality from Rose. While Rose was mostly calm and careful, Sil was more cheerful and a little sadist to top it all. Plus Ray had to call her back more than one time, before she stole fish from the fishers. In the end he contacted Claire, who gave direct orders to the queen to not steal anything.

The base grew slower, than Ray would have liked. Only half of the defensive lines were prepared the day before the undead arrived. Arthas was already on the way to the capital, but luckily it takes longer the land way, than with a zeppelin or Overlord.

Ray now knew why Claire held back most of the bio energy. She built up a strong army and was now preparing to strike. Talk about an overkill.

"Why can't we join our queen?" Sil complained. Ray rolled his eyes, as he finished eating his apple and threw it away. "Because it will be only harder for us when the undead increase their numbers and we don't want the humans to die. By the way, I'm still one of them and I plan on being one for a long time."

Sil sighed and came out of the water, placing herself next to the Lair, on which Ray was leaning against. The sun was setting and Celindra already left for the village. He knew she was spying for the villagers, but Claire didn't mind, so he couldn't throw her out.

"We should just consume this world. We should perfect this world."

...

"You're creeping me out. Besides, perfection is kind of impossible."

"The Zerg are perfect. We adapt to every situation. We have no limits. We're many and at the same time we're one."

She giggled at Ray's worried face. "I won't disobey my queen's orders. You don't know how painful it would be."

"Another reason to stay like this. I have way too much fun hitting Claire over the head and belief me. She needs it."

Ray yawned. The past days he'd been in and out of the collective, but never really out, out. It was getting to his head and he was worried he got not repairable damage over the past days. Too tired to even bother entering the Lair, he put his cloak over his body and used the building behind him as a pillow.

"Night..." And he was out.

"Goodnight, father."

XXX

**The next day**

"God, I'm nervous..."

Celindra was checking her bow. Sil came out of the water.

"They're here." she grinned.

"A kingdom for a siegetank. Whatever, I always wanted to know if undead really can swim."

Sil had full control over the U-Lings and would coordinate the attacks on the ships. The first fleet was out of eyesight, but would be there within ten minutes. Because of the Gargoyles, their vision was limited, due to being forced to evacuate the Overlords. Most of the ships were made for transportation and only two looked like they could seriously damage the small cluster.

Sil swam back to her U-Lings as fast as possible. From underneath the surface she could see shadows flying towards the cluster. It must be the Gargoyles.

_Ray, they're coming._

_Can see them. We'll be a little occupied with them, so don't expect any reinforcements and Sil?_

_Yes?_

_You can go all out._

Sil grinned. She couldn't wait to test her abilities. The tactic they used was really thrilling. The enemies of the swarm would never know what hit them. Once every Zerg was in position and the ships too, Sil used her abilities to create an underwater shockwave, causing a massive leak on the next best ship. Her U-Lings started attacking the ships, although the leaks they caused were way too small.

Seeing as this wasn't working as planned, Sil ordered the Lings to group up and attack one ship by one until it really started sinking. Then they went on to the next one. Sil herself in the meantime dealt with other ships. Not even having heard of submarines, the undead couldn't do anything, but trying to swim. But how do you swim, when the necessary muscles are rotted away? I tell you how: like the Titanic.

Meanwhile Ray made the mistake of trying to hit the enemy flyers with his elemental balls. After two spells, he finally got the brain of using his lightning out of the fingers attack. The Hydras did their job, like always. Some of them dived underwater to escape the shots of the flyers, only to come up behind them.

Celindra enchanted her bow, using poison arrows. Every hit was an instant kill. Still after the first wave was done, Ray saw the base itself had taken some serious damage. And it just got better.

_A group of flyers and ships is nearing the human village. _One of the Overlords warned.

_Shit! Sil!_

_I'm already there._

"Wow. Hydras, defend the village from the Gargoyles! Half of the Lings and Roaches go too, in case they get on land!"

The Roches actually swam through the water in order to get to the village. Ray briefly wondered if he should go with them and was actually about to go, when Celindra put a hand on his shoulder.

"A commander is needed to coordinate the troops."

He got the message immediately. Over the days the nightelf got to know the boy, especially how he hesitated and made false decisions here and there. So she decided to give him advice here and there. He wasn't really ready to lead an army on his own. In her opinion he had the potential, it was just throwing him in the cold water hadn't been the best decision of whoever lead those Zerg. Admittedly she would have done the same.

The Zerg did a great job on their own, but the villagers didn't make it easy at the beginning hunting down the Zergs with everything they could come up, before they saw the undead.

_All done._

For some reason Sil _didn't_ sound too happy.

"That girl has some serious sadistic issues." Ray muttered holding a hand on his head, as another headache started to come up. "Of all times, why now?" he groaned.

_My Lord, the second wave is approaching. There're a lot more Gargoyles with them, than we first assumed._

"What?!"

_My Lord, they have at least 10 Frost Wyrms._

"WHAAT!? Oh this is bad, this is really bad. We're screwed."

Ray hit himself over with the pipe in order to calm down. Even he could see they stood no chance against a wave that big.

_Sil, take out the remaining ships. The rest of us will start evacuating this place. You can later look for a safe place, where we can pick you up._

_We're running away?!_

_We don't exactly stand a chance against a wave that big!_

"What about the villagers?" Celindra asked.

"Crap, I totally forgot about them." Ray barely kept his composure, as the uncomfortable feeling in his stomach grew with every second. "We'll need to push them into the Overlords, but we don't have enough!" He ruffled some hair of his head. They simply couldn't last out.

"The Hydras can buy us some time, but that won't be enough. Arrgh!"

_So this is how it feels to lose control over the situation._

The undead attacked and Ray focused too much on the fight, instead of actually giving the order to evacuate. It was just too much for him! The nightelf noticed this and took him aside from the fight. "You need to give the order to evacuate."

"R-Right."

The Wyrms were almost there. He gave the order for the Lings and Roaches to just run away and the Hydras to hold out, although it left a lot of pressure on his chest.

"I told Claire that was a bad idea."

"Stop blaming yourself."

They were getting overrun. Well, at least they managed to sink the ships. Evacuating the village totally didn't work, no surprises there. Ray was at a total loss. He knew he had to go to the villagers and tell them what was happening, but he just couldn't move. Partially because of how down he felt thanks to losing the battle and partially because his brain was totally shutting down from the headache. He even had hallucinations of choppers with machine guns with dwarfs in them. Wait a sec.

This wasn't an illusion, there really were dwarfs literally saving their asses. Finally having some air support, the Zerg managed to strike back. The Frost Wyrms were still a problem, not only freezing the Hydras and Flying Machines, but also the spore crawlers, which did the most damage on them.

Ray and Celindra were already on a safe distance, watching everything. "If only we had Mutalisks. Now we lose thanks to the Wyrms. Urrgh."

The nightelf next to him, casted some kind of spell, emitting Ray in green light and he even saw some leaves. He felt a little better, but he knew it was only temporary.

"You're a druid?" he asked. She just smiled and looked towards the still ongoing the fight. The base was as good as lost. The dwarfs were already retreating, seeing as it was pointless fighting the dead leviathans.

"...Don't worry."

"Huh?"

She seemed to talk to the wyrms. "I will release you from your chains."

"Nice talk, but I don't get how you want to pull that off. I mean they're dragons and you're...are...are..."

"Is something wrong?"

...

"OH SHIT! NOW I REMEMBER!"

_No wonder I didn't recognize her! She isn't showing her horns!_

"You're...Ysera, the dreamer, right?" he asked carefully. Ysera grinned again. How come he never noticed how sharp her teeth really are?

_What's she doing here? Isn't she supposed to be- gah! It doesn't matter, she's here and she's on your side, be grateful!_

Ysera transformed right next to him and in the blink of an eye, the big boss of the green dragons stood right next to him. And because she was the big boss, she was big. Really big!

"Whoa!"

**"Hold tight."**

She even sounded half asleep in her true form.

"Wait! I'm afraid of heiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiights!"

Why she even did put him on his back, he didn't get. He was too occupied holding onto some spikes, while that mutated lizard flew like she was totally drunk! He didn't know much about flying, but that neither looked nor felt like the normal way dragons dodged attacks. She always stayed on side position for like 30 seconds, before returning straight. Her fire attacks easily overpowered the ice attacks of the wyrms. She kind of needed a few seconds to realize she lost Ray after this looping. Or should I say half looping? She was still upside down, when she realized, she lost the boy and really barely managed to catch him in time.

"That's the last time I fly with 'Never come back Airlines'."


End file.
